Five On Friday: Family Traditions

When our oldest child was in 2^nd grade she was asked to share “one of” our family’s traditions. 

Oh, sure, just one of them? Truth be told, we were sort of hard pressed to come up with something--it's almost as if we hadn't congealed as a family yet in that way. However, eight years later we have a son in 2^nd grade and now have so many yearly traditions it was hard for him to pick what to choose. Here are some of the choices:

1. Making epic gingerbread scenes on Thanksgiving weekend.

2. Hosting an annual Christmas party with some of our closest friends. Highlight for the kids is the smashing and eating of that gingerbread:

3. Paper hands Christmas trees that grow every year:

4. Advent calendar of good deeds (follow along on Instagram to see each day's deed)

 5. Outhouse Theatre! We have an outhouse in our yard (it's a two-seater!) We use it to store toys and sports equipment and a few times a summer we hang a screen up and show a movie. On Labor Day weekend we host the Outhouse Theatre Short Film Fest and show homemade short films. Every submission is a winner. My cheeks usually hurt from laughing so much by the end of the night.

BONUS! I just found these pictures when I was looking for the other ones, so I had to share. I'm not sure if this counts as a bona fide tradition or not yet, we only did it twice over a three year period. One summer we were lamenting the lack of an ice cream truck in our area so decided to create the Lucky Duck Ice Cream Truck, whose motto is "Everything is free or your money back!" Basically we fill a cooler with ice cream novelty items, make a sign and hang it on my car with magnets and then drive around to friends' houses and hand out ice cream.

 

And the tradition he's going to share is . . . Outhouse Theatre Short Film Fest! I hope his class enjoys it.