Happy Groundhog's Day!

I am beginning to believe that traditions and family rituals are the greatest part of life. Good traditions at least. It does help that this was pounded into my brain during my classes for my Home and Family Living Major at BYU. But, I also believe it from personal experience.

So James and I are have been trying to come up with fun little traditions (little is key) for all the odd times of the year when there aren't so many commercially easy ones (like Easter eggs).

Here's the latest:

Groundhog's Day. The idea is that you pick the Saturday closest to Groundhog's day and you hibernate all day. You stay in your pajamas and play games and watch movies and just stay "holed up" at home together. We have modified it a little bit because we're not sure we have that much time to devote to this. So we spent a Friday evening celebrating Groundhog's Day as soon as he got home from work. I had finger food ready, we changed into our pajamas, and we watched movie after movie until it was time for bed. This year we watched a lot of shows and movies that we had borrowed from other people and needed to return. It was great to catch up a little on those. :)

Check out the finger food!




I realized this year, that Groundhog's Day is perfectly timed with the Superbowl. It was the same weekend I think. So all the finger food was on sale!! Yay! Great timing there, Little Groundhog. Good thinking!

I am anxious to see how this tradition will evolve. I could see us always picking the weekend after Groundhog's day so that we know already if we should hibernate or "wake up". Maybe we'll have to go on a hike or something similar if he doesn't see his shadow in the future...

We got this idea from a great book called "The Joy of Family Traditions" by Jennifer Trainer Thompson. It has a whole lot of fun tradition ideas from various families and demographics. I especially like the ones that are simple enough and involve just having a special meal or visiting a certain location in town or reading a specific story. Those are easy to repeat in the future because they don't drain energy too fast and ruin the whole next day or week in recovery. :D I'm a fan!