Creating Traditions For Your Grandchildren
Jennifer Trainer Thompson, author of “The Joy of Family Traditions: A Season-by-Season Companion to Celebrations, Holidays, and Special Occasions” shares some great ideas for creating new family traditions, like making soap in the spring or enjoying a ‘ho
Commitment: Why are family traditions so important? What do they give us and how do they change our lives?
Jennifer Trainer Thompson: I think through family traditions that we weave the heart and soul of our family life. We also teach our children through ritual. I’ve learned that traditions aren’t just the obvious ones – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year – but also the daily, small rituals that form the fabric of our lives, either as parents, lovers, or children.
Commitment: What are your favorite family traditions? What traditions did you enjoy most as a child, and what new ones have you brought into your own family?
Jennifer: My favorite family traditions always centered around my extended family. Family parties – when I was a kid, they were the Saturday after Christmas. Now they are an entire weekend, the weekend after Labor Day. And food – my grandmother’s brownies and grapenut pudding, my mom’s Grand Marnier Turkey Stuffing. I can still smell it and be transported back to my childhood kitchen.
Commitment: How did having family traditions impact your life?
Jennifer: The kids love them, and so do I. They bring a special focus to every day. And I’m flexible about traditions – we don’t do the same ones every year (sometimes I skip a year or so) and I try new ones and discard old ones that no longer work. (I liken it to cleaning out your closet – if you haven’t worn something in 3 years, give it up!)
Commitment: What advice do you have for a mother who may wish to start many great family traditions, but finds that she often doesn't have the time, money or maybe has trouble getting organized enough to continue them?
Jennifer: Start now. Buy a special napkin ring for each child, and use them with cloth napkins at meals. It takes a second – while you’re setting the table. Or a special Christmas ornament each year that signifies an achievement of the child. If you wait until you have time, you’ll never do it. If you just say, let me take 10 minutes out of this day, you will. My book is filled with hundreds of quick little traditions.
Commitment: What are some of your favorite fall traditions? What fall traditions did you discover while writing this book that you found fascinating?
Jennifer: I was startled by how ancient many fall traditions are, harking back to the harvest time and how people have celebrated the harvest for centuries. And the very American tradition of Thanksgiving – and giving thanks. On my website, www.joyoffamilytraditions.com, I have a tradition of the month which people may want to look at.
Commitment: While many people cringe at the thought of winter, what are some great winter traditions a family can start this year? Any special ideas for the cold and sometimes dull January/February blues?
Jennifer: My kids love the hooky day! Once a winter, let the kids call ‘hooky day’ and both parents and kids take a day off from their routine and do something really fun – sledding, or skating, or skiing.
The child gets to call the day (within reason; it can’t be the day of a big test for them or an important presentation for you). Or hibernation day – if you live in a region where there are snow days, indulge in it – rather than checking email and frantically hunting for a sitter, go with it: watch a movie, make popcorn and hot chocolate, go sledding, read books by the fire…and at Christmas time, make natural ornaments (pine cones smeared with peanut butter and rolled in suet) and decorate a tree for the birds….
Commitment: In writing your book, what spring traditions did you find most interesting?
Jennifer: I was amazed that so many of the religious holidays – Easter, for example – were originally pagan celebrations that the church gave a good veneer to and repackaged as a religious holiday. I love Easter traditions, and also have been blessed to be invited by Jewish friends to their Passover dinner – the traditions are ancient, and so meaningful!
Some super quickie spring traditions that are wonderful:
• Collect the first wild violets you see in your lawn and make a bouquet for the kitchen table.
• Have a seasonal meal – asparagus, rhubarb, etc
• Make soap with your children
• Get involved in spring cleaning – the school playground, or just collect the litter and weeds from your bus stop…
Commitment: What are some of the summer traditions you write about in your book? What are your favorite summer traditions?
Jennifer: Hold a family conference at the beginning of the summer and decide what project you’ll tackle as a group: building a tree house? Visiting the House of Seven Gables? Mastering ping pong? Do it as a summer project, as a family.
Commitment: You wrote that while rituals and traditions are ancient, traditions are now more important than ever before. Why do you think we need them more now than ever?
Jennifer: Children with older parents don’t always have the advantage of knowing grandparents. Divorce is commonplace. One out of three parents is a stepparent. People work a lot – kids are in daycare, not home baking cookies. Many good parents simply don’t have a lot of time…
Commitment: How can families who live far apart create traditions that bring them together?
Jennifer: With the Internet, it’s fortunately easier than ever. People can share ideas, thoughts, photos, and traditions.
Commitment: How can divorced families create traditions that give their children a sense of continuity, identity and security?
Jennifer: I think this often involves forging ahead with new traditions. Take Christmas, for example. Maybe “his” kids are used to going to grandmother’s house in the morning and being home in the afternoon. Your kids are used to visiting Uncle Jim on Christmas Eve, being home in the morning, and seeing friends in the afternoon. You can’t blend those two schedules, and if something is left out the children will feel it. Instead, creating a new tradition helps ease the pain of old traditions being ‘not quite right’.
And thinking of Christmas in terms of a season, rather than lasering in on the one 24 hour period, helps. There are many hints in my book for coping with the holidays, and also other holiday’s, like Mother’s Day.
Commitment: How does tradition give us a sense of family identity and why is this important?
Jennifer: Tradition builds a connection between us that is lifelong. They reflect and inspire the way we parent and how we honor the passage of time and meaningful moments in our lives. In a society that is increasingly chaotic, weird, and wired, they offer a way to connect to a more spiritual dimension, to embrace a quieter world.
Commitment: You divided your book by the seasons. How is the rhythm of the seasons important in our daily lives? How can we get more in tune with this rhythm as we create family traditions?
Jennifer: As I researched the book, it became more apparent that so many of our traditions – Easter, Halloween, the solstice, the equinox, Christmas, New year – are tied to the time of year. Yet it’s so easy, with access to info 24/7, to forget that we are governed by the moon and the stars and the sun.
The book naturally divided itself into the seasons, and then I threw in a sprinkling of little ideas (like collecting violets) that I do in odd moments to herald a season, and indulge in it in a small but fun way. It’s too easy to miss the rhythm of the seasons and get caught up in our daily lives, but I hope this book inspires people to rejoice in the beauty and wonder of the natural world through family ritual.
Commitment: In researching your book, what are some ancient traditions you found fascinating that we might be able to bring into our lives today?
Jennifer: We do in ways we have no idea we’ve done. For example, when you celebrate a birthday, you put the candles on the cake in a circle…that harkens back to centuries ago, when only kings, saints and heroes could celebrate birthdays.
Over time, parties for children became more common, as a way to protect little ones from the wicked spirits that were thought to cause mischief and possess a child’s soul on the anniversary of their birthday. Other kids were invited to serve as decoys and the cake with its candle (a protective circle of fire) offered a measure of protection..we still do it, without having a clue why. I loved discovering the reasons behind so many traditions today.
Commitment: Can you tell us a little about your annual spring picnic? What did you enjoy most about this? Do you have any tips for other mothers who would like to start an annual picnic?
Jennifer: As a kid, we’d always take a picnic to the beach. It was simple – tuna fish sandwiches, chips, and cokes, and always my grandmother’s homemade brownies. The dunes were warm, the water was cold, and the warm breeze signified what was to come. It was so simple, yet announced that spring arrived. You could do that anywhere – in the mountains, in the park, at a museum, on the lawn…
Commitment: What are some great last day of school and back to school traditions?
Jennifer: Have your teacher to dinner, make a list of all that you want to accomplish in the summer (or during the school year). Have a ‘back to school’ breakfast. Take a picture of your child on the front stoop every year in the same position. Go out for ice cream on the eve of school to talk about what you did during the summer.
To purchase The Joy of Family Traditions click here.
About the Author: JENNIFER TRAINER THOMPSON
WIth almost 500,000 books and posters in print, Jennifer Trainer Thompson has written more than fifteen books, including BEYOND EINSTEIN: THE COSMIC QUEST FOR THE THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE, which has been published in ten languages, JUMP UP AND KISS ME: SPICY VEGETARIAN COOKING, FEASTS AFLOAT, as well as a trilogy of books on ingredients native to her New England home: cranberries, blueberies, and maple syrup).
Nominated for three James Beard awards and dubbed the "Queen of Hot" by Associated Press, she's recognized as a leader in the spicy foods movement for her cookbooks and the hot sauce posters that she hascreated for Celestial Arts. (Her first hot sauce poster -- which was featured everywhere from Playboy Magazine to Good Morning America -- has sold over 60,000 copies.)
Interested in food and food trends, she has also created posters for Celestial Arts on single varietal olive oils, microbrewed beers, and single malt scotches. Her books have drawn acclaim in the national press, and she's been on hundreds of talk shows, including Live with Regis, CNN, and Good Morning America. The chef and creator of Jump Up and Kiss Me, an authentic, all-natural line of spicy food products available nationwide in boutique stores and online, she is passionate about spicy foods, and has followed her own personal "Trail of Flame," speaking at conventions and in the media about hot foods, serving as guest chef at Hot Nights at restaurants in Boston, Philadelphia, and the Berkshires, and even going so far as to try Armageddon Sauce at a bar in the Adirondacks that's accessible only by snowmobile in the winter.
A journalist for 20 years, Jennifer writes about topics that interest her – science, food, travel, art, and lifestyle - for Omni, Discover, Harvard Magazine among others, and has garnered a reputation for having a knack for sniffing out trends. She wrote the first objective book on the commercial nuclear power controversy in 1982 (NUCLEAR POWER: BOTH SIDES), and co-authored a popular book about scientists' quest for the unified field theory (BEYOND EINSTEIN) when the superstring theory was proposed in 1987. She wrote the first national story about the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) for The New York Times in 1987, and was so taken by the idea of establishing a contemporary art museum in an abandoned mill complex in a small New England city that she asked the fledgling institution's founding director Joseph Thompson for a job. Thompson hired her to become MASS MoCA's founding development director, and several years later married her.
She and her husband Joe have worked at MASS MoCA ever since (she's raised over $40 million for the museum since its inception), and live in western Massachusetts with their two children, ages 10 and 5. Family and family traditions have always been important to her, and when she and Joe started a family ten years ago she began jotting down ideas, which eventually became her most recent book: THE JOY OF FAMILY TRADITIONS.
What the Critics Say
“When the Smithsonian does an exhibition on hot sauces in America, let’s hope the curator is Jennifer Trainer Thompson. She’s the author, traveler, chef, shiitake-farmer and hot sauce creator who set it all in motion….she brought popularity and polish to an otherwise obscure hobby practiced by culinary eccentrics across the country.” Chile Pepper
“We’re having a heat wave, and the weather has nothing to do with it. It’s because Jennifer Thompson wants to take us ‘mouth surfing’ through the world of hot sauces.” Minneapolis Star Tribune
“If you want your food to have color and rhythm and your flavors to sing out – HOT LICKS is for you…some of the best hot sauce recipes in print.” Mark Miller
“This (cook)book was more important on our bus than the owner’s manual.” Willie Nelson
“(Her book’s) written with wit and searing acumen” – Suzanne Hamlin, The New York Times
Books by Jennifer Trainer Thompson
THE JOY OF FAMILY TRADITIONS (Ten Speed Press, 2008) *
NUCLEAR POWER: BOTH SIDES (W.W. Norton, 1982)
BEYOND EINSTEIN: THE COSMIC QUEST FOR THE THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE (Bantam, 1987)*
THE YACHTING COOKBOOK (Crown Publishers, 1990)
HOT LICKS (out of print; Chronicle Books)
THE GREAT HOT SAUCE BOOK (Ten Speed Press)*
THE GREAT MICROBREWERY BEER BOOK (Ten Speed Press) *
THE HOT SAUCE COLLECTOR’S GUIDE (Ten Speed Press)
FEASTS AFLOAT (Ten Speed Press)*
TRAIL OF FLAME: THE RED HOT GUIDE TO SPICY RESTAURANTS ACROSS AMERICA (Ten Speed Press)
JUMP UP AND KISS ME: SPICY VEGETARIAN COOKING (Ten Speed Press) *
THE GREAT TIKI BOOK (Ten Speed Press) *
CARIBBEAN COCKTAILS (Ten Speed Press) *
THE VERY CRANBERRY COOKBOOK (Ten Speed Press) *
THE VERY BLUEBERRY COOKBOOK (Ten Speed Press) *
THE VERY MAPLE SYRUP COOKBOOK (Ten Speed Press) *
