Family rituals

[pegkerr]

Tell me about one family ritual that you do that means a lot to you. I'm asking about everyday rituals, not holiday or special occasion ones. It could be from the family you grew up with or the family you're in now--or even somebody else's family, if it is a ritual you like and admire. I'm looking for a list of the little things that families do that build together memories, cohesion, trust and love.

When Rob and the girls and I eat dinner together, we go around the table and each person says one good thing that happened that day.

Whenever I'm driving with the girls and we see crows, we recite the rhyme:

One crow sorrow
Two crows joy
Three crows a girl
Four crows a boy
Five crows silver
Six crows gold
Seven crows a secret never to be told

And you?

Comments

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

What is the derivation or history of this rhyme? I have an old book that has "One for" rather than "One crow" but otherwise it's the same, and I love it.

~A

[papersky.livejournal.com]

As "one for" it's originally a British divination rhyme about magpies, and the last line has two variants, that one and "a secret ready to be told". You count the magpies and whatever number it is, that's what happens. As far as I can tell, the rhyme went to North America and transferred to crows.

It's a long time since I looked this up, but I seem to remember that the origins of the rhyme are unknown but really old.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I don't know if this counts, but we say "I love you" at random, a lot. "Hey Mom!" "What?" "I love you" that sort of thing, it's not really an end of the night or as you leave thing, as much as just a random, walk past each other in the kitchen and say it sort of thing.

My mom and my sister and I have adopted the Victorian Friendship Ball that I first heard of from you- though my mom cheats and puts things in it that don't fit and ties it together instead of closing it.

I used to fuss about my mom brushing or braiding or 'doing' my hair growing up, but my son, still at age 12, will ask me to 'do' his hair for him (he's got more kinds of gel/hair product than I ever encounter previously in my life). This really touches me, I don't know how to explain why, but it does.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

This really touches me, I don't know how to explain why, but it does.

How about because it's incredibly sweet and charming? :)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted to have passed on the Victorian Friendship Ball ritual!

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

One of the things that sprang to mind when I saw this post was the fact that my childhood family used to eat breakfast together. I miss the luxury and regularity of sitting down at a table and eating together, even if none of us were competent to do more than grunt at each other.

It's oddly comforting to remember: every morning, we sat down to have cereal. Mom had her puffed rice, or whatever incredibly normal cereal she'd moved to, in a white china bowl. Dad had his inevitable corn flakes in a white china bowl as well. I had my Cheerios (mostly) in the bright-orange plastic bowls I'd had since I was waaay small, even after they'd gotten warped by the dishwasher. We all sat around, ate our breakfasts, and then Dad was off to the office and I was off to the school bus.

When I hit adolescence, this still happened, although very slightly altered. I was very sad the day Mom finally threw out the bright-orange plastic bowls and I reluctantly graduated to a white china bowl.

After I got to college, I kept eating breakfast every morning, just for the essential comfort of it, and fell easily into a ritual breakfast of French toast and milk. When I was home for summers, I returned to the family ritual (especially since my father and I worked at the same company plant my last two years, and so commuted together).

When I left for graduate school, the family ritual sort of came apart. I never ate breakfast at home regularly again; even now, I mostly grab something and go, if I do anything at all. My parents actually changed cereals eventually, and even experimented a little, although they've settled on a nut-and-honey corn flake type now.

They still have the white china bowls.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

We always say "thank you" to the cook.

I was shocked in college when I roomed with people who didn't -- they just ate and left.

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

When I was little, Mom would put my hair in two long braids every night after I washed it, and then would wake me up before she left for work to rebraid it for the day.

Now, though, I'm 1000 miles away (at best), and all we can do is make sure that the last thing we say to each other is always "I love you." ALWAYS.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl, and
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret that's never been told
Eight for sunshine
Nine for rain
Ten to be lost and found again.
Eleven bring fortune to all that them see
Twelve for a journey down to the sea.

Originally, it was a magpie counting rhyme, from England. In the US, crows are far more common in most areas than magpies, and the rhyme is almost always about crows.

Another one starts

One for sorrow
Two for mirth
Three for a wedding, and
Four for a birth..."

I don't remember that one by heart. I'll look it up, sometime soon.

As for rituals, there's the going-to-bed hug in my current household, which is pretty much never missed. Another common one is for Julian and me to play cards - usually gin rummy - in restaurants. This is most often when we go out for breakfast, which we do often, and play while we eat, but we'll also do it in other restaurants when we're waiting for food. It amuses the wait staff, generally. And it amuses us a lot. We're incredibly rude to each other as part of the playing process - in complete fondness and having fun with our quite real competetive urges we curse each other out, lie, insult each other, propose all sorts of evil tactics we could employ, and all the while actually allow all sorts of do-overs and point out any time the other person discards a card they could make use of. We laugh our heads off.

I win most, of course.

:)

And we read aloud to each other. I, in particular, jealously guard books I love which she hasn't read yet and refuse to let her read them on her own because I have dibs on reading them to her. (She's far more generous.) She'll asks me about books and I'll grudgingly consider and tell her, "You can read any of the recent books by McKillip, the ones that were published in the small hard-backs. Not the early ones, though, except maybe Moonflash." Right now we're half-way through the Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy, and most of the way through Helene Hannf's Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. She's been reading me Roller Skates.

And sometimes we go for long drives and purposely get lost in some beautiful piece of countriside. Julian drives, invariably, when we do this, and sometimes she asks me, "Do you mind if I go south on XX this time?" and I give her this gently incredulous look and say, in answer, "I'm with you." I don't care where we go. It will be pretty, and we'll be together, and if it's dark by the time we're driving back, I'll have a book with me that I can haul out and read to her as we go.

As I demonstrate part of her point...

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

You do not win most. Hmph.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oooh, it is so cool to get the addition to the rhyme after seven! Thank you!

[sternel.livejournal.com]

My family, whenever we take a car trip, always gets McDonalds for breakfast, and we eat on the road. Whoever's navigator has to help feed Dad, who always drives, and I always get an extra hash brown that everyone tries to steal from me. My mother also, historically, will only manage to make it about an hour before she has to beg for a pit stop, but that's not so much tradition as just desperation. The traditional part is where my dad, feeling his testosterone, keeps driving despite her threats.

It's kind of ironic, because road tripping with my family is really kinda hellish (too many people in too small a space) but once it's over we all laugh about it like mad.

[althea_valara]

Whenever I'm driving with the girls and we see crows, we recite the rhyme:

One of my favorite books as a kid was The Secret of the Seven Crows. I must've checked it out of the library a dozen times.

Family traditions & fond memories:

• Pizza on Fridays. This was such a tradition that when we played Barbies, they were always ordering Giordano's stuffed cheese pizza.
  
• Asking my dad where he was going on Saturdays. If he was getting his hair cut, he'd say, "I'm going to get my ears lowered." Another favorite response to the same question: "I'm going crazy--want to come with?"
  
• Playing Monopoly with my younger sister. I was always the dog, and she was always the horse. I'd make barking sounds as I moved, and when she passed me she'd knock my dog over. She got the yellows, and I got the reds. We never really played to compete, but just to have fun.
  
• Tripoley with pennies. Canasta and Cribbage when we got older.
  
• Jigsaw puzzles and hot chocolate on cold, snowy winter days.
  
• Yard chores on Saturday mornings. We all hated it, but it's a strong memory.
  
• Movie nights at our grammar school, hosted by our church's Family Life Committee. My parents were a part of it, so I usually helped out at the popcorn/soda window.
  
• Cutting through the "prairie" (an overgrown, weed-filled abandoned lot) on the way to our tiny library. The new, larger library was built on top of the prairie.
  
• Getting up early on Tuesdays and Thursdays to roll the local shopper newspapers, which we then delivered. The smell of newsprint, and the slipperyness of black on our hands. Grandma rolled them the tightest.
  
• Playing Yahtzee with Grandma! And watching game shows together during the day on summer vacations. Sale of the Century, Press Your Luck, Pyramid.
  

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, and we were driving to interesting places, my dad always used to point out water towers, and reservoirs, and McDonald's. My brother and I would then go, "Waaaaaaaater toooooower!" or "Reeeeeeeservoir!" and so on.

On family vacations, we always went to the same place (our house in New Hampshire) so my dad tended to point out the same interesting historical details, every trip. (Including the now-deceased Old Man In The Mountain.)

We always always had breakfast together. (For awhile, my mom had Brewer's Yeast with breakfast, which made her sweat and turn red, which let my dad tease her.)

We also did dinner together. We were expected to talk about what had gone on that day. If we went on too long on our own private obsessions, someone said, "Is this of general interest?" which was a hint to drop it. (This card was played on my dad a lot. Though we seem not to do it anymore.)

[callunav.livejournal.com]

"Is this of general interest?"

Isn't that a Cheaper By the Dozen reference?

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

It may be.

I /seem/ to remember it happening before my dad read Cheaper By The Dozen aloud to me, and I am fairly sure he'd never read it before, when he read it aloud to me, but it's possible I'm remembering wrong.

(I certainly know it /happens/ in Cheaper By The Dozen, though.)

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

I know it's silly, but we have a few responses to phrases between Martin and me. For example, if I say, "It would be a good idea to take out the garbage" Martin will say, "Let's do it anyway". Eventually, we got tired of the "good idea to..let's do it anyway" game and now we ration ourselves to once or twice a week.

Before we go to bed, there is a checklist of things to do - lights out, doors locked, cat fed. Sometimes when we ask each other what's been done, we scramble it, so it becomes cats locked, lights fed, doors out, etc.

When I was a kid, my brothers and I always kissed each parent and said goodnight before we went to bed. I did this until I went away to college. Even as an adult, when I went to visit my parents, I would be sure to give each of them a peck on the cheek and say goodnight. Now that my Dad's dead, and Mom is in a nursing home, I can't do that when I visit, and I miss it.

[snippy]

When my kids were younger and I woke them in the mornings, I'd sing our family wake-up song. My mom woke us that way when my sister and I were little.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

We woke Fiona every day to the Lion King soundtrack for over two years. Whenever I hear that first cry over the African savannah: "Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba!" it all comes rushing back: those cold December mornings, Fiona rolling over sleepily in her crib, and the animals gathering to wake her up and greet the new day.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

In lieu of saying grace, before every meal (okay, every meal at home that's just the two of us) Arne and I hold hands and say "I love you."

Jeff (my brother) is the only visitor who generally gets included in this ritual. Generally when he's here we all hold hands, I say "I love you guys," and then we say "Happy dinner" to each other and eat.

We are also fairly ritualistic about always saying thank you for cooking and cleaning chores.

My mom used to enforce a road-trip ritual: Each of us would get a bag of M&Ms, and we could eat one every time we passed an exit. Jeff and I usually cheated, but Mom never ever did.

On road trips now, Arne and I play the horse game, only we keep adding new rules. Plus, he's driving so he can't really look, so I count for both of us.

[magic-at-mungos.livejournal.com]

I came here via aome. I love my family's tradition of cooking this huge brunch on Christmas morning and inviting loads of people round to eat it with us. I also quite like the tradition of being able to open our stockings and then having to wait until after the Queen's speech to open our presents.

Birthday teas are always fun. When my nana (my dad's mum) was alive, it was always at her house.

[catmcroy.livejournal.com]

*I buy my daughter a Christmas tree ornament every year for Christmas - that way when she grows up (she's almost 4), she'll have at least a few Christmas decorations to take with her to start a grown up life.
*Every night before we go to sleep, my boyfriend and I say "I love you," to each other, last thing we say before we go to sleep
*Every day, I take a picture of my daughter with my digital camera.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

We have exactly the same Christmas ritual of buying an ornament for each girl each year.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

When heading into a tunnel, everyone in the car counts:

"One, two, three..." etc., from the time we see the tunnel until the time we're *in* the tunnel.

Once we enter the tunnel, Robin yells, "TUNNELED!"

Particuarly hefty overpasses also qualify for the Tunnel Treatment.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

My husand and I: whenever one of us showers, the other one washes their back. It's a little thing, but it's a touch-comfort thing. And we have cleaner backs.

My family: Growing up, we would always discuss the day's world news over dinner. When we moved to Africa, that turned into listening to BBC while dinner was being made and then talking about it during dinner. For a couple of years, we divided up one large room into sleeping space for all of us. My father would read me and my mom to sleep with O'Henry stories. We always had to find out the ending the next morning over breakfast.

[cornfields.livejournal.com]

I sing popular songs to my dogs, and replace all of the lyrics with their names. I'll probably do the same thing for my children. I'm a geek and I'm sure they'll hate it, but the dogs wriggle around the room in pleasure when I sing their names to them.

My husband and I always give each other a kiss before going to sleep every night , say I love you and sweet dreams. It's our special bedtime ritual.

[morganmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Great idea Peg! I loved reading some of these.

One random family thing is that my parents came up with nicknames for themselves: my mom is "mama roo" and my dad is 'Daddy Gi-Gi the one" and they sign cards to us this way. I have no idea when they started this. My Mom also used to wake us up everyday by saying "Good morning my little scrubbies!"

Traditions: my mother gives us new pajamas on Christmas Eve every year. When I was younger they were night gowns and the like, and now I usually get sleep pants and tanks, but she always gets us new PJs that we are required to wear that night.

There was something else random I was going to add, but I can't remember anything else right now.

[janni.livejournal.com]

My sister and I shared a room growing up, and before bed every night, we'd have a round of "announcements, announcements, aNNOUNCEments" (and the rest of this song), and then talk about--well, sibling stuff that I'm even now not at liberty to share. :-)

Before said announcements, when my Mom tucked us in each night, she always said the same thing: "Good night/sleep tight/wake up bright/in the morning daylight/pleasant dreams my loves." (I wonder if that became singular after I moved away for college.)

My Mom and I will still say "love you up to the sky," at the end of phone calls or when parting--gotten from my grandmother, with whom I used to say the same thing.

lnhammer and I always greet each other with a kiss when one or the other of us gets home, even if we're otherwise busy.

[morganmalfoy.livejournal.com]

haha, we sing that song at camp...

[morganmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I thought of something else!

In my extended family, we always eat lunch together during the holidays at my grandmothers. The days after Christmas and Thanksgiving are the only days of the year that I eat cranberry sauce and turkey sandwiches on pumpernickel with Miracle Whip (which I usually hate). My grandmother makes them, and we all sort of picked it up.

I don't know how much this will continue because my grandfather died a month ago, but my grandparents also have 'happy hour' everyday on the patio around 5, and then watch the news at 6. If we're all in town we always have lunch together, decide what we're going to do for the day, and meet back up for happy hour.

-Morgan

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

This hasn't happened for a while, but only because we've scattered a bit and haven't had ham in years. Whenever we were little and had ham for dinner, the kind with the bone, we couldn't have the bone on our plates. Ever. If you got the bone, you had to trick someone into looking away and drop it on her plate. Dad's great at this. He's also the master of, "Oh, here's our food," in restaurants EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Do pet names count as traditions? Because only my parents are allowed to call me Booj, and they'd better do it.

[perimyndith.livejournal.com]

Big family brunches. Always on holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas), and a couple other times in a year, my parents will make crepes or Dutch baby pancakes and we'll eat ourselves stuffed. We still do this a few times a year even though their younget is 24.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Growing up, my family watched Important Events together. We saw, as a family, the first walk on the Moon in 1969. we saw every liftoff and splashdown. We watched Nixon resign (my mother taped it on cassette!). We also watched the local weather, silent as a church, as my mother had (and still has) a phobia about storms and my stepdad was a weather!geek and amateur meteorologist.

Now, my current family (who're grown or almost grown themselves, wah!) still punch the ceiling of the car and say "Pididdle" when we see a car with one headlight. We still play twenty questions on long car rides or restaurant trips. And we still know a lot of the old Waldorf finger-games. :)

This is from David Cummer

[(Anonymous)]

For some reason I'm not able to sign into your LJ site under my user name.)

Whenever my family headed off on a trip my father would always say, "We're off like a dirty shirt!". It was YEARS before I got it...

At beadtime they'd always tell me the following:

"Goodnight, sleep tight,
Don't let the bedbugs bite.
If they do,
Take your shoe,
And pound them 'til they're black and blue."

Re: This is from David Cummer

[carbonel]

My mother sang that one to me, though it was prefaced by:

"Now run along home
And jump into bed
Say your prayers,
Don't cover your head.
This very same thing
I say unto you,
You dream of me
and I'll dream of you.
Good night..."

And so on. I think she learned it at summer camp.

Re: This is from David Cummer

[morganmalfoy.livejournal.com]

after taps at camp we sing something similar "so run along now and jump into bed, say your prayers and cover your head, this very same thing I say unto you, you dream of Skyline (camp) and I'll dream of you. The funny part is that during taps we hold hands right over left and then at this part we spin around and swing our arms. Writing that down, I feel silly to be in my 20s and still doing this at camp.

[aome.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, my father bought an old rocker-swivel armchair that he didn't care what happened to it. We could watch TV, horse around on it, spin it around and around, I could turn it on its side and use it to build forts - it didn't matter.

Also, until I got to the age where it wasn't really appropriate anymore, the first order of business each morning was to climb in bed with my parents and snuggle (parents are divorced - I mean whichever parent I was with at the time). Even on school days - we built it into the morning routine. At my dad's house, he'd eventually get up and let me watch Saturday cartoons in his bed while he got breakfast ready (and, in the case of winter, the fireplace going), then I'd get up when it was all set and we'd eat together on a bench (he made) in front of the fire.

My mom would stick notes in my lunch. We also had a sort of 'girl's day out' once a month. It was a monthly bonus on my allowance ($5 instead of the weekly 50 cents or one dollar or whatever it was I was getting at the time) and she'd take me shopping if there was something I wanted to spend it on. Often I wouldn't actually get anything - it was more a lesson in making judicious choices as to what I really wanted to use my money for - but we called it "Special Day", and we did it every month.

My dad and I would climb his tree and eat bananas with Pringles up there. We'd 'camp out' in his yard in the summer, count the stars, and then he'd carry me inside in the morning.

I suppose this is more of a 'special occasion' but - if I spent the night away from home, my mom and I would arrange to send each other a telepathic hug at a pre-set time (usually around bedtime). That way, I could imagine she was really hugging me at a time when I sometimes felt homesick.

As for my family of creation - bedtime stories. When we had only one child, we all gathered in MiniPlu's room, including the dog; Will usually read, but sometimes I'd be elected. Then she'd hug everyone in turn (including the dog), we'd lift her up so she could turn out the light, and we'd tuck her in. Now with two kids, we take turns reading to each child (I read to MiniPlu tonight and Will read to Two, in their own rooms; then, after tucking each girl in, we go into the other room to say goodnight to the other kid. Tomorrow night, we'll switch kids.) It's not as nice as the group family moment, but until they're able to enjoy the same level stories, it'll have to do.

We also use "chop chop" as an affectionate way to remind someone that they need to hurry up and get moving. MiniPlu reminds Will every morning when he's getting ready for work. When we were in China for Two, he really missed his "chop chop".

Sorry - one more

[aome.livejournal.com]

Reading over some of the other comments reminded me of one other nighttime ritual. After I brush my teeth and such, I always stop off in each girl's room to whisper "I love you" over their sleeping forms. I touch Two gently through the crib bars, and bend down to kiss MiniPlu in her bed, and I say a prayer that they'll grow to be happy, healthy and successful, love us as we love them, and happy with their place in our family. I can't NOT do it, no matter how tired I am. I started this after my father confessed that he used to stand watch over my crib when I was a baby, and make a similar wish for my future.

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

I read a chapter of HP to my daughter every night. Right now we're on book 5. After she's read all the HP books we'll start in on other books.

[fingle.livejournal.com]

Every night for over twelve years I've put my kid to bed with the same incantation. I started when she was only four days old on her first night home, and I can't NOT do it, even when I'm angry at her, or even when I'm far away or she's far away. If we're apart, I'll go outside at her bedtime and stare off at the horizon and say the whole thing. Even when I'm working late nights as a stagehand, or she's staying at her grandmother's house four hundred miles away... She's in the seventh grade now. I know there'll come a time when I'll stop saying it to her, but I imagine I'll always say it even when she's living in her own home, a grown woman with babes of her own.

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

My dad and I all the way through my Uni degree had Breakfast on Friday at Rue de Paris on Park Road. He always had the full breakfast and I ossilated between fried eggs and bacon and pancakes. We generally just talked, and caught up on everything. I now live 3 hours flight away, but still have Friday breakfast with dad when I am home. We even carried the tradition on when I lived in London and he came to visit.
When I was younger mum and I always used to do the grocery shopping together, I was always allowed 1 chocolate bar for the week. I still (at 27) crawl into bed with mum when I am at home and need to think.
As for my adopted family down here, Stephen and I try to have Sunday breakfast at Kaos, its our way of connecting and just relaxing after manic Saturdays.

Bedtime!

[camdenbatgirluk.livejournal.com]

Hi i've never posted here before but was linked from another LJ i read. I'm 19 years old, about to leave home, for university and every night i'm home my mum always gives me a kiss and tucks me in to bed! She does this for my 12 yr old sister too, but i'm nearly an adult and i think its cute!! camdenbatgirluk

Re: Bedtime!

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting, and I'm pleased to hear about your nightly ritual. As the mom of two hopeful daughters, I find it encouraging to hear that moms still keep those nighttime rituals up.

Welcome to my journal. Stick around; you're welcome to comment anytime.

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

Peg! This is so in-the-past that I can't see the comments. I just chased back through your journal, looking for this, because I wanted to copy down the "continuation" that someone posted in a comment, and now I can't see it. Can you possibly possibly send it to me? This is my favorite rhyme and I wanted the variant.

Why can't I see comments on the old entries? Is that a setting or does it happen for everyone on old ones?

~Amanda (lewanski_amanda @ bah.com)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Hi, Amanda. I don't know why you weren't able to see the comments. I can see them myself; perhaps it was just a momentary LJ glitch. I respond at this comment, and send you this info by e-mail, too. The longer version of the poem was posted by callanuv, as follows:

One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl, and
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret that's never been told
Eight for sunshine
Nine for rain
Ten to be lost and found again.
Eleven bring fortune to all that them see
Twelve for a journey down to the sea.
Originally, it was a magpie counting rhyme, from England. In the US, crows are far more common in most areas than magpies, and the rhyme is almost always about crows.
Another one starts
One for sorrow
Two for mirth
Three for a wedding, and
Four for a birth..."
I don't remember that one by heart. I'll look it up, sometime soon.

The thread is here.