Why We Celebrate Earth Day as a Family!!

Which holidays are your favorite to celebrate? Why do you love to celebrate it? When we choose which holidays to celebrate, it is because they mean something to us and we make it a priority. Have you ever considered making Earth Day a REAL holiday in your family? For most people, it is just a blurb at the bottom of their calendar. Maybe your kids do a little project in school and talk about it for a class period; usually one of your favorite direct sales companies throws a little sale (*hint hint*). But beyond those small things, it just gets a lip service.

As I’ve started thinking though, we do make the earth a priority day to day. We reduce, reuse, recycle. We buy more energy efficient appliances and vehicles. We buy certain cleaning products. We plant our own gardens. The list goes on and on. But do our kids know why we do those things? Will the earth be a priority to them or will these things become another lost tradition?

How do we hand these traditions down to the next generation, ensuring our kids know their responsibility to the earth? I suggest we celebrate!! Just how we have certain traditions concerning our religious holidays, maybe it’s time we make some memories around new Earth Day traditions. Unfortunately, many of our Earth Day convictions come out of sad circumstances- oil spills, deforestation, ocean pollution, etc. However, instead of making it a day of doom and gloom, celebrate the ways you can admire the earth and make it a more beautiful place!! Here are some ways my family and I like to enjoy Earth Day:

1. Hiking
2. Watch a stunning movie or show, like Planet Earth or Finding Nemo.
3. Visit a conservatory, arboretum, or zoo
4. Plant your own garden or tree
5. Go fishing/boating/canoeing on a local lake or river

The most important piece of making something a tradition is communicating the reason you do it. All of these activities are just settings where you can bring up conversations about the earth. You can talk about pollution in waterways while fishing, or wildlife endangerment at the zoo, or deforestation while planting a garden. Make the link of these big issues to the small ways your help the earth. For example, talk about how your kids’ helping wash out the recycling saves the sea life, or how using less paper in the house helps the forest, or how using certain cleaning products reduces chemical pollution in the waterways and soil. You are your child’s best teacher and already set an example of what it means to be a good steward of the earth, all you need is to communicate it and make it a priority!

Let’s celebrate Earth Day this year and give it some attention!!

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Suzanne