I came from a family that didn’t really have many family traditions, so when I got married, we developed a whole glut of them.  It’s almost ridiculous, but we have a ton of great memories because of it.  I am happy to share them with you.  And feel free to copy what interests you, or let them generate other great ideas.  Just make sure to have fun with your families.

Book of Mormon Trivia—This was hands down the family favorite game.  Without any preparation at all, grab a laundry basket, ball or rolled up socks, and a Book of Mormon (or other scripture).  Ask a question from the scriptures, just make them up as you play the game.  When the child gets the answer right, they are allowed to try for a basket.  One point for the answer, one point for the basket.  We would often form questions from our recent scripture reading.  When the kids were small the questions were manipulated in such a way the answers were always “Jesus Christ” or “Nephi”.  We rarely had true competition, because we bent over backwards to get them to give the right answers.  The real competition was making the baskets, which again we tended to bend the rules just a tad.

Nephites and Lamanites—This is actually a very bad example of family fun.  This was an adaptation of steal the flag where we would hide washcloths in our assigned rooms and the other team would have to sneak it out of that guarded room.  Often a basket of laundry would be laying around, with additional room clutter, which would complicate the playing field.  Someone would often cheat, usually Daddy. Anyway, invariably, someone would end up crying by the end of the evening, so it has become our “tragic” tradition.

Gorak—You might remember in the original third Star Wars movie, the Ewoks had a monster of some kind that they called Gorak.  My husband, by dressing up in all dark clothes, would become the Gorak Monster.   We’d turn out all the lights and he would crawl around scaring the kids.  I usually sat on the couch waiting for various children to jump on my lap for protection (my favorite part of the game).  To signal the onset of the evening game, we would have Gorak Goolash for dinner (this was poor man’s chicken and rice casserole).  It got the kids eating the meal and waiting anxiously for it to get dark enough to play.

Outdoor movie—During the summer, we typically have an outdoor movie on July 4^th.   We set up in front of the garage door and  bring out couches, blankets, munchies, the whole bit. 

Birthday Bag—After presents are opened, everyone anticipates the birthday bag.  This is a bag full of silly objects representing personality/unique traits the birthday person has; for example:  my son is tall and skinny, so I found a long Pixie Stix.  My husband is sort of losing his hair, so I collected a “bag-o-hair” from a recent haircut.  My daughters like to sing and play the piano, so they often got a musical type item or sheet music.  There was always a crown of some kind in the bag and loads of candybars, such as:  “You are worth ‘100,000 grand’, “You ‘Score’ big with us”, “You are Bursting with Star power”.  You get the idea.  And clearly, anything was fair game as long as it was funny and/or positive.

Morning Scripture Reading—This has certainly been a tradition in our family from way back, but I don’t know how successful we’ve been.  The kids would drag themselves out of bed and pretty much sleep the whole time.  They would wake up in time to read their scripture, then fall back to sleep.  We kept holding it though. 

General Conference Weekend—This was party weekend at the Tolman house.  I cooked up a storm.  We always had our General Conference Breakfast in the morning, played Bingo (where you match subjects from the talks given to pictures on your playing card) with cereal, m&ms, marshmallows, etc., lunch in between sessions, more candy, dinner and dessert.  It was a 48 hour eating binge.  We have simplified this routine in a lot of ways now, and mostly just enjoy listening to the words of our leaders—with fewer and healthier meals and just a little bit of candy.

Holidays—are for family.  No friends, no work (including housework, thank goodness).  Lot’s of food and games.  We also love to watch movies together. 

 I’d love to hear what traditions have worked in your families.