Add a Family Tradition for the Fourth of July: Easy, Fun and Inexpensive

Family traditions create a comforting bond. Often all it takes to cement a new tradition is to repeat it one time. The next time around, if you decide to do something different, rest assured, someone will remember and call you on it! As an experienced mom of four, I've learned the hard way that family traditions should be easy, fun and not rely too heavily on cash on hand. Over the years my income and energy level has fluctuated, so the traditions that stuck were the ones that followed those three main guidelines. Fourth of July is a great backdrop for a new easy, fun and inexpensive family tradition with the added bonus of being able to impart some knowledge about our nation's past.

Story time

Aside from all the built-in fun the holiday often brings such as parades and firework displays, you can make a point to pull some meaning into the holiday by reading a children's picture book explaining the history of the holiday. The book can change as children grow, or it can stay exactly the same. Gradually move from reading it to the family, to having the oldest read it, to letting the youngest read it.

Tie a new tradition to an old one

If your family always cooks out the Fourth of July, turn part of the meal over to the kids. Let them bake a cake for our nation's birthday. Make lighting sparklers or reading the simple patriotic book mentioned above, a part of waiting for the fireworks on Fourth of July evening while everyone munches on a favorite family snack, Twizzlers are my family's choice.

Rise and shine everyone!

Sing a patriotic song on the way to the breakfast table, before the parade, since most families are together on the Fourth of July. If you don't feel like singing, maybe you can wake everyone up every Fourth of July with a CD of patriotic tunes.

Red, white and blue...and muffins too

The special feeling a tradition provides really hit home when my foster girls arrived. My daughter made it a point to explain they have to wear red, white and blue on the Fourth of July and that, "No, you can't have cereal for breakfast today, we have to have muffins on the Fourth of July." It was said with such conviction and pride, that I knew those little traditions were more important than what they appear to be on the surface.

Patriotic story books include;

The Pledge of Allegiance by Norman Pearl. Your children may know the Pledge of Allegiance by heart, but do not know what it means. Read this story to the family to give them the history behind the words penned by Francis Bellamy more than 100 years ago.

After the story, the family can turn to one of the many flags displayed on this holiday and recite the pledge together. Video tape your children saying the pledge each year for a keepsake to have in the future. Their voices at 3 years old will be a treat to watch when they are 13, or 30!

America: A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney, author and wife of Vice President Richard Cheney. This sweet picture book follows the alphabet to honor this "beautiful land made more beautiful still by our commitment to freedom," Letter by letter it briefly touches on important individuals through the history of America, milestones, and principles of this nation.

We the Kids: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States by David Catrow. The only text is the actual Preamble to the Constitution, something your children will no doubt be studying at some point in school. Reading this book is a fun introduction, or refresher. The illustrations that accompany the text follow a group of kids on a camping trip. It humorously illustrates through the cartoons, the rights and responsibilities the Constitution places on all Americans.

More by Sylvie Branch:

Bicycle Olympics: Ten fun events

Scientific Method for the very young

Discipline Help: Guidelines for laying down the law