My family’s gratitude jar

CHERISHED FAMILY TRADITIONS

It’s such a shame that more and more people are abandoning traditions for materialistic pursuits and are more interested in creating meaningless relationships with faceless people in the virtual world. But have we ever considered what we are losing out?

I am a strong believer in upholding cherished family traditions and these are some of them:

Dinner as a family: And definitely no devices allowed! As a household, we believe that we shouldn’t let the things we own end up owning us. We want to encourage dinner time as a time for conversations and sharing of ideas rather than being stuck to our phones.

Gratitude jar: Sure, life is all about ups and downs, and on a bad day, it can be incredibly difficult to focus on what is positive. And so it is that we have a gratitude jar. Every week, we have to write one thing we are grateful for and drop it in the jar. At the end of the year or even in between when upset, just dip your hand into the jar and catch the riches you have been blessed with!

Making time for grandparents. The words of wisdom learnt from grandparents can never be found in any book or encyclopedia. They have seen a lot, done a lot and lived a lot, and by listening to their experiences, we children can enrich our lives.

So there you are, the three simple but extremely rewarding traditions that teach me to live in the moment and cherish the wonders of the real world... not the World Wide Web type of world.