Last week, I took my second little pilgrimage, for my little granddaughter’s birthday, to a cabin in the Chickasaw State Park for a couple of nights. There’s one important lesson I solidified in my grandmother mind through the events of this second trip; one thing I really didn’t think about last year on the first trip to the cabin.
Maggie wanted to go to the same park. She wanted me to try and get the same cabin. Once we got there, she wanted to make the same brownies, play in the exact part of the lake, find the wounded bird pavilion, go to the park office and look at the same stuffed animals, and roast marshmallows. She wanted her little brother, Ellis to come for the second night. All of these things were the things we did last year. She even wanted to go to FHU and eat in the cafeteria. She wanted exactly the same things we had done the previous year! I was struck by this. What I might call “old news” or “monotony”, Maggie called exciting. I learned anew, that in the minds of children, tradition is a precious commodity. Maggie wanted her little brother to come with us on the second night, but not the first…just like last year.
I remember that family traditions were important in my own childhood and in the years of Caleb’s and Hannah’s childhood. But I had never given a lot of thought to the grandparent/grandchild traditions we can and should be building. Why are family traditions (especially annual ones) so very important in childrearing?
- They create a spirit of sanctification; not in the sense of sacredness, but in the sense of set-apartness. Traditions set our family apart from the “rest” of the people. Only our little circle can know and remember certain joys that happened in shared traditions. This makes membership in the family exclusive and special, in a good way.
They let the children know that there are certain people/events in our lives that are important enough to repeat. The memories are solidified and the events are anticipated eagerly from year to year. - Fun traditions make our children know that the Christian parents/grandparents know how to have fun in a better way than does the world around them. This is going to be important down the road.
- Traditions provide a memory bank, for the future, that is just for your little circle to share—in conversations, in letters, in photos—all through the coming years. These are things that, one day, will be discussed, with fondness, at funerals.
Done the best way, traditions together are full of talk, devotion to and reverence for God. You don’t have to be in a worship assembly to be putting faith in kids. Now, don’t miss the worship assemblies of your people, but some of the best faith building times, in the growing years, are the family Bible times and the all-day-long Deuteronomy 6 kind of teaching in life. They will remember this teaching when they are remembering family traditions. - Traditions help children find steadiness and perseverance in the things that matter. It will become hard to find the time to repeat activities when your children become teens. When they watch you work around schedules to be sure it still happens, it builds stability and lets them know that they are important on your list of priorities.
Repetition is absolutely necessary on every learning curve. I 
hope yon are carrying out wholesome family traditions. 
I’m really trying hard not to post all the time about grandkids. You could not tell that? Well, as Anne Shirley of Green Gables says, “If you only knew how many times I want to post about them and don’t!”
1960s. I recall that my older brother, John, really loved those doughnuts. I think she made them most often for him and especially during the summer that he lived with my grandparents and went to summer school in their little town of Jacksonville. But, oh! I loved them so much, too!
So, I got out my old dough bowl, hand carved by my great great grandfather . I could hardly believe that I was watching Colleyanna shape the dough on a dough board/bowl that was made by her great-great-great-great grandfather, Joe Phillips, in the era of the “Farmer Boy,” himself. I asked her if she’d like to have that dough bowl one day. She thoughtfully said, “I’d like for my mother to have it first.” (It was probably used by my grandmother when she made the doughnuts those first times around.)
in powdered sugar. And just like Almonzo’s sister, Eliza Jane, loved the doughnuts, so did Colleyanna’s sister, Eliza Jane.
Sometimes when you get to be advanced in age, like I am, you are overcome with
As I finish writing, it’s now Sunday night. That sports coat has barely been off the boy’s back since we bought it. He wore it to the funeral. He wore it to worship this morning. He wore it to Bible bowl this afternoon (although he was the only person in the building with a coat and tie on) and
I think when we made him pull it off for eating salsa at lunchtime, was the only time it got left in the car.
Another was mentioned to me by a parent in Texas as being a bright light in her daughter’s life through a camp they both attended. Yet another little duo lost their baby brother this year and, still, together, they made their way to the stage for their blue Bible bowl ribbons. (I think some families know exactly how to bring kids through the dark days!) Some of the youth group members are official Diggers and all of them are digging in the word. And one of them made his way to the stage, three times, in a new navy coat with a pocket square and a new red plaid tie. I’m so thankful for all of them!
It’s been a crazy month. I’ve spoken at events or on podcasts about a dozen times through the month. And we’ve gotten out about 2500 hard copies of the new Digging Deep book this month. 
We’ve ordered 400 more and there’s no telling how many free copies have been downloaded. (If you are waiting on a DD book, I’ll let you know the moment they are ready and we will ship out post haste!) Keep inviting. The catch-up is still very do-able!
She’s finally gotten old enough to go short distances with me overnight and so we went about 35 minutes from her house to Chickasaw State Park. I rented a cabin for two nights and we had the time of our lives. It was her birthday, but I am absolutely positive the gift was more for me than for her. There was so much needed laughter. There was tea time at Besso’s coffee shop. There was swimming, just the two of us alone) in a big lake in the warm sunshine. There was deep discussion about God. There was exploration and playground time 
and owls and brownie baking and marsh-mallow roasting and hiking and falling asleep to the rhythm of her sweet breathing as her head lay on my shoulder.
We know where it all is. You will love it. I’ll show you our cabin and you can sleep in your own room. She was wrong about that last part.
When the grandkids visit, we’ve been reading “Little House in the Big Woods” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Let me just say that I highly recommend moms and grandmothers everywhere doing this. I am amazed at the organic conversations that just naturally emerge from this reading. When my own children were young, I assigned the reading of this set of the Little House books and they enjoyed them. But we did not necessarily talk about them. But this read-aloud is a different kind of thing, altogether. Don’t listen to an audio book, either. Let them hear your voice and let them interrupt. It’s a slow process, but it is so worth it!
The girls in the story like to look at pictures in the big Bible. Colleyanna simply could not believe that people in a story book that is not a Bible story book were looking at a Bible. This was a great moment to talk about how sad it is that most families today do not look at their Bibles, but in the late 1800’s, the family structure in America was largely centered around the Word and its principles. This was not uncommon, at all.