A tradition worth saving...
This is the first NYE without my sweet grandmother, Ann Robbins. Though it is a sad realization, I find comfort in carrying some of the traditions she started. One of my favorite traditions my grandmother created involved writing down New Year's resolutions. I think it was the teacher in her to encourage all of her grandchildren to write these goals down--sometimes there were prompts and sometimes it was a simple write down 3-5 resolutions. All of the cousins would collect the papers from Grandma and find quiet places throughout the house to think through what we wanted our resolutions to be. It was truly an impressive scene getting over a dozen sugared-up children to do some schoolwork on a holiday.
It was not the act of writing the resolutions for me, but what I cherished most was that Grandma held on to these writings year after year. When it came time to write our new resolutions down, she also gave us all of our old papers that she kept safe and stored for us year after year. Some years were humorous where I wrote about my 4th grade crush, while others were more serious about going to college and making future plans. It was fun to see my growth, and I looked forward to it every year.
Photo by Remy Photos
Continuing the Tradition
When my husband and I first got engaged, we started our own resolution lists that we store year after year. I wanted a template that covered all the basis so that our goals would be specific to multiple areas of our lives. We have been at this for 3 years now, and I have found that simply the act of writing your goals down helps them be achieved. So tomorrow, on New Years Day, we will pull out our previous resolutions and write new ones for 2022. We always exchange our forms after we've finished to see how they line up and talk about how we can help each other reach our goals. Then our resolutions are filed away to be reviewed next year. I am so looking forward to sharing this tradition with our children as we welcome our first this Winter.
I hope that this inspires you to start this tradition with your own family in honor of my grandmother. Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year filled with blessings and meaningful resolutions!
