\While looking through the various pictures that we have on my computer, I recognize a pattern of traditions that my immediate family has adopted and grown to love. I've always known that we've had these family traditions and I love them even though some of them people would find are extremely strange or immature. What I say to those people is that you've gotta have fun sometimes, right?
The more traditional ones that are focused on holidays have been in our family for generations and are stemmed from a generation-spanning event. In other words, they have always been there and that's just how it is. The ones that are focused more on our own childish humor started with the family that I lived with, my parents and my sisters, and we are all at a loss at how some of them started. I guess one day we decided that it would be funny to start doing it and it caught on from there.
Of course, the ones that we find funny are not always perceived as such by other people, but honestly who really cares? If we're not hurting anyone by doing it then who's to say that we should stop?
In this article, I will discuss five of these family traditions that have started due to a long line of family traditions or morbid curiosity. I'll try to go into them in depth and whether or not they have a backstory, but seeing as they've been there for so long, it might be hard to figure out an exact time frame.
1. Listening to Harry Chapin on the way Up North
The younger generations out there might be thinking "who is this guy?" Well, Harry Chapin was a singer/songwriter who was popular in the 70's. He wrote songs such as "Cat's in the Cradle," 'W*O*L*D," and my favorite "30,000 Pounds of Bananas." He died in 1981 due to a severe car crash.
My family listens to the album pictured above while going Up North and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way. It's a fun album filled with some funny songs that make no sense and some serious songs that shouldn't be taken lightly.
We've been listening to his songs since I was a little girl when I didn't know what the meaning of some of the things in the songs was. Of course, I learned what these things meant and really learned to appreciate the songs for what they were when I got older.
You may be wondering, "Alyssa, how in the world did you start listening to someone from the 70's on the way Up North?" It all started with my parents. I asked my dad and he said that they started to listen to him on the way Up North when they were younger so much that it became a habit. He said, "We listened to him so much that we knew how far we were on the way home back to the cottage based on the song that was playing."
2. Taking Pictures of Horse Poop
Yes, you read that right and yes, that is me posing as if I took the biggest dump in the history of human dumps.
This is one of the weirder traditions that my family doesn't talk about often but we do all the time. I'm not even joking. We've taken so many horse poop pictures from places in Michigan such as Greenfield Village and Mackinac Island that we could make an entire collage or compilation of them.
It's quite ridiculous how many pictures we have, but it makes the experience ten times more enjoyable. It's an inside joke that we love telling to each other. The only big problem that we have with this tradition is trying to discreetly take the picture so that nobody around us looks at us like we're crazy.
I've tried thinking on how this tradition started exactly and I can't seem to come up with an answer. I've also talked to my dad about this one too, but he can't seem to come up with an answer either.
I guess it was just a want to make the experience more memorable and take pictures of things that people don't see that often. Like giving an inside look to the other things that happen at this site other than the beautiful buildings and grandeur.
3. Covering Up Letters On Signs
As you probably have figured out already, my family has a pretty childish sense of humor, but I love it with all my heart. We have this thing where we would cover up a couple of letters with either our hands or our entire bodies to make the sign say something absurd or dirty. Like right here my dad is covering up the g and the l in the word "glass" to make that sign.
I remember that this started with me when we were at a beach in Michigan and I thought that it would be funny to cover up a few letters in a word to make something obscene. It was a lot of fun and the tradition just stuck after a while. The inside joke kept going.
This could happen literally anywhere from the beach to a historic site to just walking around our neighborhood. However, this mostly happens when we are out on vacation somewhere or out on a trip. It's another way to let our sense of humor show and make the experience more memorable.
Of course with this one we also have to be discreet about when and where we do it. Don't really want people to see what you're doing.
So these are just three family traditions that we have! Perhaps there will be a second one where I will go into more depth about some of the generational traditions.
