Sunday, March 14, 2010

Tradition!

I've decided to call myself a sociologist this month. . . I didn't know if this fits so I googled the word. I found a rather stuffy definition, which follows: 
"Sociologists study human society and social behavior through the prism of group formations and social, political, religious, and economic institutions. How individuals interact with each other within given contexts, the origin and development of social groups are important indices by which the sociologist conducts his research and draws conclusions."


OK.


And a more casual one:
"Sociology is the systematic study of how human societies shape the lives of people who live in them. People make lots of decisions in the course of living every day. But we make these decisions within the context of "society;" our family, school, nation and the larger world. The essential wisdom of sociology is; the social world guides our life choices just as the seasons influence our selection of activities and clothing."


The definitions mentioned family and studying human behavior, so I think it's a fine profession to choose as I document and, perhaps, invent some family traditions. My goal is to make an 8x8 photobook about our family traditions. I've begun by writing out all of the holidays and what we do so far to celebrate them. I am already at 16 events with traditions. What I think I need to examine or invent are non-holiday related traditions. Something that we did last June that was SO fun was on the last day of school, we had the car packed and we picked the children up from school and drove 3 hours to a hotel with a great pool and slide and spent what was left of the evening enjoying that. Then we went to the fantastic Calgary Zoo on Saturday and drove home after supper. It was such a celebration of school ending and summer starting what with the excitement already inherent in school ending and summer starting. We could make that a family tradition.


[Yup, that totally is a hippopotamus butt on the right.]

[The twins staring down the gorilla.]

[I know - why does the little train make them so happy?!?]

Please leave me one of your favorite family traditions in the comments section. I'll be randomly drawing from those who comment, and the winner will receive a handmade glass bead bracelet from the Bead Tree. . . Not really, but that's what a really popular blogger would do. You can click on the link and see what you might win in my imaginary world. :)

3 comments:

Julie said...

Every 2nd Sunday, Daddy makes cookies with his girls. And then Mommy eats them after all the dishes are cleaned up. We call it "Snickerdoodle Sunday" but you don't HAVE to make snickerdoodles--although, why wouldn't you?

Ryan Ramage said...

What about today. It's Pi day after all!!! March 14 (3.14) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day
Eat some pi's and celebrate math!

Gilly said...

I love your beginning of summer tradition. We did that last year as Andrew was marking diploma exams in Edmonton. We thought we would get to do that every year, but they have since removed the written component of the physics exam to save money. We also do a fairwell to summer with a sleepover, tent in the backyard, and a campfire, where we can all reminisce about the fun things we did that summer.