Tradition!

I've been thinking a lot about traditions lately and how important they are in building and keeping family/friend ties close. I think that there is something really neat about having a tradition that you do with your friends/family. It can be anything from going somewhere to eat regularly to playing games on Tuesday nights to gathering together to watch General Conference. Just anything to make you feel like you are a part of something special. I want to start making a special effort to recognize the traditions that I have and start a few new ones this season. Here are some of my favorite traditions both w/ my family and friends from over the years:

1. One semester of college, I made a new group of friends from a late night English class that we all had together. We were sort of an unlikely group of people, but somehow we bonded. And we started going to a restaurant called Coco's after class to have breakfast for dinner. It was a short-lived tradition, but really fun.

2. As a little girl, one of my FAVORITE traditions was getting to stay home from school to decorate the house for Christmas with mom. One day after Thanksgiving, mom would sneakily ask me if I wanted to stay home from school to help her decorate the house. Now, this was a VERY unusual occasion for her b/c normally if I stayed home from school-no matter how sick I was-I had to clean, just to be sure that I wasn't staying home to have fun. So, this one day a year when she let me off the hook, became such a fun day. We'd get out the Christmas boxes full of decorations, iron ribbons to hang on the tree, polish ornaments, hang stockings and listen to Christmas music to our hearts content. I just remember feeling like a little elf getting to assist my mom in the wondrous transformation that occurred when she turned our house into a winter wonderland. This is definately a tradition that I will keep up with my daughters.

3. Christmas Hike. Our family has the tradition of going on a hike on Christmas day after all the presents are opened. I never thought about how unusual this tradition is until Morgan pointed out that most places are way too cold/covered in snow on Christmas to go on a hike. So, that is a plus of being in Vegas for Christmas!

4. Emerald Salad. For as long as I can remember, a dish called Emerald Salad has been served ONLY at Thanksgiving time in my family. Now, I won't divulge the secret-passed-down through the generations-recipe for this dish, but sufficed to say, it is yummy. I look forward to having this each year and have actually inherited the Emerald Salad making duty in our family. (To all those who attended the JPM Thanksgiving, sorry it didn't set up-something went very wrong and it ended up soupy)

5. Monday Night Baseball. My senior year of high school, my friends and I had a tradition to play baseball in the fields near Sam Boyd Stadium every monday night after fhe. They boys were really good and serious about the game, but the girls were mostly there to socialize and have fun. The tradition almost always included a trip to Jack in the Box for a milkshake afterwards.

What are some of your traditions?