How to Document Holiday Traditions to Keep Them Alive

The Joys of Holiday Traditions

You might already practice a holiday tradition that was passed down to you from a loved one in an older generation. These traditions are fertile ground for special memories that last lifetimes and cross generations, building excitement that can lead to you, your family, and friends looking forward to different holidays year after year.

Types of Holiday Traditions

You might already be unknowingly practicing your own set of traditions with your family for the holidays. However, if you are thinking about starting your own holiday traditions, there are several types to consider:

• Food traditions. You may have certain dishes you want to eat for a holiday’s dinner. These might be foods that are valued in your culture or your favorite foods as a child. But you don’t have to limit your food-related holiday traditions just to dinners. Make these traditions fun and collaborative by scheduling a cookie-baking party or hosting a gingerbread house decoration competition amongst your family and friends.


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• In-home traditions. You can practice holiday traditions in your cozy home. Read themed books and watch holiday movies with your loved ones. Play music that gets everyone in the holiday spirit. Create decorations together and place them around the inside and outside of your home.
• Neighborhood traditions. Holiday traditions don’t have to be confined to your home. Include your neighbors in on the fun too. You and your loved ones can go caroling through the neighborhood. Or you can decorate the outside of your home for your neighbors to enjoy as they pass by. Another holiday tradition might be going sledding, ice skating, or seeing a themed musical that takes place in your neighborhood.
• Volunteering traditions. You and your loved ones can also help spread holiday cheer to other people in need. Volunteer at a soup chicken or food bank that helps feed families for the holidays. You can make it a holiday tradition that you donate gently used clothes and shoes to a shelter. Or you and your loved ones can work together to sponsor a family’s holiday food or gift list.
• Gift traditions. You can even make special holiday traditions for how you and your family and friends exchange gifts. Draw names out of a hat or bag and make or buy a special gift for the person whose name you draw. Or you can play a game of White Elephant and let people strategically pick from a pool of gifts.

How to Document Holiday Traditions

Whether you have a full roster of holiday traditions or you decide to start some new ones, you may want to document them. Documenting your holiday traditions not only keeps a record of your memories but helps keep traditions alive for generations to come.

Take Photos

A simple way to document your holiday traditions is to take photos. This is an easy, collaborative method that everyone can participate in—all your friends and family can take photos with smart phones or cameras. And instead of worrying about printing photos each year and managing decades’ worth of photo albums, everyone can upload their photos to an online album that they can view whenever they want. Uploading the photos to an online drive, like Microsoft OneDrive, is a safe place to back up your photos in case you lose your phone or camera. You can also share the online album with your family and friends through a semi-private link through which they can add their own photos.

Record Videos

You can also upload videos to Microsoft OneDrive. Recording videos of your holiday traditions add another layer of detail to your documentation, which makes it perfect for creating permanent memories of your loved ones’ voices or laughs or stories. When it’s time for future generations to repeat the holiday traditions, they can use your videos as direction of the materials and steps they need to follow the tradition correctly.

Document and Share Recipes

If you want to pass down food-related holiday traditions, you should probably save recipes from your favorite dishes—even those recipes that are less about exact amounts and more about practice. If you record your grandma’s chocolate chip cookie recipe or your uncle’s honey barbecue sauce recipe, future generations can experience their same, great taste even if they don’t get a chance to meet older generations. You can use a collaborative platform, like Microsoft OneNote, to digitally record, share, and organize pages of recipes with help from your loved ones.

Create Playlists

If you’re having a tough time getting people into the holiday spirit, themed music is a tried-and-true party starter. Create playlists for different holidays and play them while you and your loved ones practice other holiday traditions. If you use a music platform, others may be able to add songs to your playlists as well. Your playlist can serve as the background music for the videos you record, or you can incorporate the songs in a fun holiday game.

Start a Holiday Journal

When you want to document the personal details of your holiday traditions, you may want to start a holiday journal. Journaling can record details and emotions that might be missed in a photo or video. Creating a digital journal allows your family and friends to join in on the memories because everyone can add their own entries to it. You can also link the photos, videos, and recipes you documented in the relevant entries. Digital document platforms, like Microsoft Word, allow you to date each journal entry and customize your journal’s design to your liking.

Documenting holiday traditions is a way to help all generations remember and enjoy the wonderful things you do together. Take photos, record videos, write down your favorite recipes, and express your joy in a digital journal. Share these documents with your younger loved ones so they know how to keep the traditions alive when it’s time to pass the torch to them. The Internet has an abundance of digital tools that can help you and your loved ones create and organize how you document your holiday traditions.