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The Book Of New Family Traditions (Revised And Updated): How To Create Great Rituals For Holidays And Every Day (2012)

by Meg Cox(Favorite Author)

3.67 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Running Press

review 1: Loved it. I ended up buying a copy (and since I read an ecopy** from the library, all my highlights were saved! Go tech!). The beginning talks about the role of tradition and ritual in a family. Cox explains the value of these rituals; they help very small children feel safe and secure by knowing what to expect, they help older children develop their sense of identity within their community, navigate potentially scary life changes, and even teach correct behavior. Cox says many parents naturally create their own rituals without calling it such. I was surprised myself as I read this with how many of our own we practice in our family that none of us were aware of. After the brief intro explaining the whys of rituals, Cox dives into samples gathered from a wide variety of... more families and values. These include things as simple as an everyday goodbye ritual, or as complex as a Hanukkah celebration. Even though many of the religious traditions weren't relevant to my family, I appreciated that Cox included a diverse and varied perspective. I was also pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of some adoption rituals. I can't end this review without sharing my own favorite ritual that my family has developed: my husband and I make sure to get up at least 20 minutes before our son to have a first cup of coffee together. It's the only guaranteed time we have to connect with each other, and we both look forward to it enough that we do it on weekends too.**there are a lot of typos in the ecopy, I assume because the print version was converted without a proofer of any kind (You'll see what I mean). If you can get past that, I'd recommend the e-version for the ease of searching and highlighting. You'll definitely want to mark this up!
review 2: In her second book, Cox continues the discussion from seeking fulfilling traditions (in her first book) and shares all the traditions readers have mailed to her since the first book was published in 1998. These family practices truly run the gamut and Cox has cleverly put the focus on the funky and quirky ways families incorporate rituals in everyday life, rather than on holidays as being the mainstay of ritual. One part of the book was a bit disturbing, for in the chapter about making rituals, instead of acknowledging the ritual recipe-based approach in Barbara Bizion's "The Joy of Rituals" (building rituals from scratch), Cox says "There is no 'Joy of Rituals' cookbook..." Bizion doesn't even get an acknowledgement mention from Cox. Oh, dear. Infighting among ritual writers is not cool. Hence the lower rating. less

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