Tag: tradition

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life

Bishop’s Tradition

Our bishop has a wonderful tradition during tithing settlement that I have really enjoyed. Each year as we sit down to make a declaration regarding our status as tithe-payers the bishop takes the opportunity to give us a gift of some doctrinal document that is not part of our scriptural canon.

It was exciting during his first year of tithing settlement (our first year in this ward so we didn’t initially realize that this was a tradition he was starting) the Bishop gave each member of the family – all six of us (kids included) – copies of The Family: A Proclamation to the World printed up in a size that fits inside a standard sized copy of the scriptures.

The next year he gave us seven copies, sized for a standard set of scriptures, of The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles (he gave us one for Enoch even as young as he was). This year I was curious what he might give us. Those two documents are the two things I would be least surprised to one day see added to our scriptural canon. When we went to tithing settlement I was excited, in the wake of General Conference (which Bishop said was his inspiration for the choice), that Bishop gave us eight copies (one for Noah even though he was not yet born) of President Benson’s 1989 talk Beware of Pride in a standard scriptural size and broken into verses.

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life

Halloween Tradition

Three years ago I would have told you that Halloween was the dumbest/worst holiday on the calendar. Two years ago I did say that it was tolerable. Last year if I had written about it I would have said that it was a really fun to go chat with our neighbors while the kids got more sugar than we would wish them to have. This year we started what we hope will become a tradition (and hopefully we’ll get it refined so that it works very smoothly for everyone) – we gave out hot chocolate as our Halloween treat. For the sake of helping us to remember the details – and because everybody surely wants to know the details of what we want to do for Halloween each year – I am writing how we made this work this year.

Laura made homemade hot chocolate in the late afternoon and we put it in a crock pot on “warm” sitting on a table just inside the front door. We placed an abundance of small paper cups there and then we went out for out round of trick-or-treating. I’m not sure we got it right this year, but the intent is for us to go early enough in the evening that we can catch the bulk of our neighbors home as we circle our block once – I imagine that over the years the kids will expand their range but for now once around that block in about an hour lets us see and talk to a bunch of people and is about enough for their attention. The hope is that this gets us home in time so that few if any local witches, ghouls, and goblins have come to our door before we return. Then we can see them (again in many cases) as they enjoy our warm offering as the evening gets colder. I can seriously envision having our children going out with friends and ending the evening with a hot chocolate party at our house.

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life

New Christmas Tradition

Living in a wonderfully snowy and hilly location, Laura and I volunteered our house as Laura’s family began planning a sledding excursion for the day after Christmas. While we were still in the planning stages I suggested to Laura that this might be something we could do every year.

Everyone decided to take us up on the offer and so our house was overflowing for most of the day. We had a great time hosting a relatively large event for the first time since we moved. Based on the reactions of everyone who came it was an enjoyable experience for all. Our house was close enough to the sledding hills for the group to have the flexibility necessary for our children of various ages and the hills were perfectly suited to the different needs of our varied age groups. We had a great meal before hand and plenty of time to socialize and drink hot chocolate after the sledding. It was perfect. Laura and I have decided that we are definitely going to do this every year. Now that we have had the experience once we will probably expand our invitation in future years to include more family and friends to share in the fun.

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life

Dutch Oven Saturday

One of the things I enjoy doing is cooking in my dutch oven. Last summer I started a habit of cooking in the dutch oven every Saturday (nearly) and I liked it enough to decide to do it again this year. Because the dutch oven cooks much more than we can eat (until our kids get older) we sometimes invited friends over to share the meal with us. This year I want to make an open invitation for anyone to come share our Dutch Oven Saturdays. The only condition is that you have to tell me in advance when you are coming – in case it happens to be a week that I can’t do it (there will be a few of those).

Technically this invitation is open to everybody although it’s not really reasonable for anyone outside of the more populous areas of Utah to expect to get here. If you want to come and need directions to my house just leave a comment and I will be happy to get back to you.

If you have a good dutch oven recipe to share I would love to hear about it – I’m always collecting new ones.