• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Tradition Writing Prompts

A tradition your family keeps, one you would start, one that changed, and the holiday table.

Tradition Writing Prompts

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  1. A tradition is forgotten for one year and nobody says anything. Write the day someone remembers.Angle: who remembers, where they are, and what they do about it.
  2. If you could start a tradition for your whole class, what would it be?Angle: something for Mondays, for birthdays or for the last five minutes of the day.
  3. Describe a tradition that had to be done a different way one year and stayed that way.First line: The year the oven broke, we found out we liked it better cold.

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All 60 prompts

A tradition in my family 15

  • Describe a family tradition for the first day of something: school, summer, snow. Angle: the photo by the door, the special breakfast, the walk. Tell it in order.
  • Describe a family tradition from the point of view of the family pet. First line: Every Sunday the big pot comes out, and I take my place under the table.
  • Describe a family tradition that happens every week, not once a year. Angle: a Friday meal, a Sunday phone call, a Saturday chore with music on.
  • Pick one tradition in your family and work out where it came from. Angle: ask the oldest person who keeps it. Write down their answer word for word.
  • Recall a bedtime, mealtime or car-ride tradition from when you were little. Angle: the exact words that were said, and who said them.
  • Tell about your part in a family tradition and how you got that job. First line: I have been in charge of the napkins since I was four.
  • Tell the story behind a family tradition as a grandparent might tell it. First line: Now, this started the winter the stove broke.
  • Think of a tradition that only two people in your family share, and tell how it began. Angle: you and a grandparent, two sisters, a parent and one child.
  • What is the smallest tradition your family has? Write about it. Angle: a handshake, a word at the door, a certain mug. Small counts.
  • Which family tradition would you never want to miss? Write why, and how you would keep it from far away. Angle: a call at the right hour, a photo sent, a plate saved for you.
  • Who is the keeper of traditions in your family? Write a portrait of that person at work. Angle: show them getting one thing ready. Let their hands do the explaining.
  • Write about a birthday tradition in your home, from waking up to the last candle. Angle: say what is the same every single year and who makes sure of it.
  • Write about a tradition you did not know was unusual until you visited someone else's home. First line: I asked where their Saturday pancakes were, and nobody knew what I meant.
  • Write about a tradition your family shares with your street, your town or your place of worship. Angle: what your family brings to it and what everybody does together.
  • Write the instructions for a family tradition so that someone new could do it right. Angle: number the steps. Include the part people always forget.

A tradition I would start 15

  • A character starts a tradition by accident. Write how one odd afternoon became something done every year. First line: Nobody meant to eat dinner on the roof twice.
  • Design a tradition for welcoming someone new: a baby, a neighbor, a pet, a classmate. Angle: what is given, what is said, and who gets to go first.
  • Dream up a tradition for losing a tooth, growing an inch or learning to ride a bike. Angle: a small prize, a mark on a wall or a silly song. Pick one and describe it.
  • If you could start a tradition for your whole class, what would it be? Angle: something for Mondays, for birthdays or for the last five minutes of the day.
  • Invent a tradition for the last day of school and write the scene. Angle: it should need nothing that costs money.
  • Make up a tradition for your street or apartment building and describe the first time everyone comes. Angle: who shows up early, who brings too much, and who has to be fetched.
  • Make up a tradition you would like your family to start, and say when it would happen. Angle: give it a day, a name and one rule that keeps it simple.
  • Plan a once-a-year tradition for doing something kind, and write about the first try. Angle: say what went as planned and what had to be changed for next year.
  • Start a tradition for rainy days. Write what it is and the first storm it gets used. Angle: one food, one game and one place in the house that belongs to rain.
  • What tradition would you start with a best friend? Write the day you begin it. First line: We decided it had to be something we could still do when we are eighty.
  • What tradition would you want your own children or grandchildren to keep some day? Angle: write the note you would leave them explaining how it is done.
  • Write a speech asking your family to try a new tradition for one year. Angle: how long it takes, who does what, and why they will thank you.
  • Write about a tradition a town could start to mark the day it was founded. Angle: invent the town. Give the day a parade of only one kind of thing.
  • Write about a tradition you would start for the first snow, the first warm day or the longest day of the year. Angle: what everyone drops to go and do, and what is eaten afterward.
  • Write the rules of a made-up tradition for family game night. Angle: who picks the game, what the winner gets to choose, and what the trophy is.

A tradition that changed 15

  • A family moves across the country and has to remake a tradition with what the new place has. Angle: one thing cannot be found there. Write what they use in its place.
  • A tradition gets a new rule after one bad year. Write the rule and the reason for it. First line: That is why nobody is allowed to carry the cake down the stairs.
  • A tradition is forgotten for one year and nobody says anything. Write the day someone remembers. Angle: who remembers, where they are, and what they do about it.
  • A tradition is handed from one person to another. Write the day it changes hands. Angle: the last time the old keeper did it and the first time the new one tried.
  • Compare a tradition as it is kept now with the way it was kept fifty years ago. Angle: make two lists, then and now. Circle the one thing on both.
  • Describe a tradition that began with one person and is now kept by a whole town or school. Angle: invent it. Show the first year and the fiftieth.
  • Describe a tradition that had to be done a different way one year and stayed that way. First line: The year the oven broke, we found out we liked it better cold.
  • Should a tradition stay the same forever? Write your opinion with one example. Angle: pick a tradition you know well and say what you would never let change.
  • Tell about a tradition your family stopped. What was the first year without it like? Angle: say who noticed first and whether anyone tried to bring it back.
  • Two families become one and have to blend a tradition. Write how they do it. Angle: both ways are kept the first year. Say what the second year looks like.
  • What would it be like to end a tradition on purpose? Write the family meeting where it is decided. Angle: give one person who wants to stop, one who does not and one who is not sure.
  • Write about a tradition a child changed just by asking why. Angle: the grown-ups look at each other. Nobody knows the answer.
  • Write about a tradition from the point of view of the newest person to join it. First line: Nobody told me the song had a second verse.
  • Write about a tradition that changed when someone moved away, grew up or joined the family. Angle: show the old way in one paragraph and the new way in the next.
  • Write about a tradition you have outgrown, and one you thought you had outgrown but had not. Angle: the moment you found out which was which.

A holiday table 15

  • A holiday meal has to be held somewhere new this year. Write what is carried there to make it feel right. Angle: one dish, one object and one habit. Say which mattered most.
  • Describe a holiday meal by its sounds alone. Angle: chairs, serving spoons, three talks going at once, one laugh you would know anywhere.
  • Describe the kids' table at a big holiday dinner. First line: The chairs do not match, and that is the first good thing about it.
  • Describe the tablecloth, the centerpiece or the candles that come out for one holiday meal a year. Angle: where the stain is, who made it, and why nobody minds.
  • Tell about an extra chair at a holiday table and the person it was pulled up for. Angle: a neighbor, a new friend, a relative back after a long time.
  • Tell about the dish that shows up at every holiday meal and that nobody is sure they like. Angle: who brings it, who takes a polite spoonful, and where the rest ends up.
  • Tell the story of one dish as it goes around a full holiday table. Angle: start it at the cook's end. Say who takes too much and who passes it straight on.
  • What happens at your holiday table after the plates are cleared? Follow one person. Angle: cards, stories, a nap in a chair, a second dessert.
  • What is said at your holiday table before anyone eats? Write the moment. Angle: a toast, a prayer, a joke or a silence. Say who starts it.
  • Which holiday food would you defend against anyone who says it is not good? Make your case. Angle: three reasons, and one of them has to be about the smell.
  • Write about setting the table for a holiday meal: who does it, and the rule about how. Angle: the good plates, the folded napkins, the fork that is always one short.
  • Write about the hour before a holiday meal, when the kitchen is full and the table is empty. First line: There were four cooks and one working timer.
  • Write about the seat you always get at a holiday meal and what you can see from it. Angle: who is on your left, who is across, and what you can reach.
  • Write about the year you moved from the small table to the big one at a holiday meal. Angle: what you thought it would be like and what the talk was really about.
  • Write the friendly argument your family has at every holiday meal. Angle: the best way to cook something, or who won a game years ago. Nobody ever wins.

How it works

These tradition writing prompts go past naming a tradition. Many ask where it came from, who keeps it going, and what the first year without it would be like.

Read the full guide

A family tradition writing prompt can be small

Fifteen prompts are about a tradition in the writer's own family, and the small ones count: a handshake, a word at the door, a certain mug. One asks who the keeper of traditions is and wants a portrait of that person getting one thing ready.

Writing prompts about family traditions that changed

Fifteen are about change. A tradition is handed from one person to another, remade after a move with what the new place has, or ended on purpose at a family meeting. In one a child asks why, and none of the grown-ups knows the answer.

  • A weekly tradition is as good a subject as a yearly one, and you have seen it more often.

Questions and answers

What is a good tradition writing prompt?

One that asks for more than a description. Tell about your part in a family tradition and how you got that job. Or write the instructions so that someone new could do it right.

What if my family has no traditions?

Look for a smaller one: something done every week, a job that is always yours, words said at bedtime. Or make one up: fifteen prompts start a new tradition, for the first snow, a lost tooth or a rainy day.

Are there holiday tradition writing prompts here?

Fifteen, all at the table of a holiday meal and none tied to one holiday: the seat you always get, the kids' table, the dish nobody is sure they like, what is said before anyone eats.

How do you write about a family tradition?

Pick one occasion and tell it in order. Say who does what, quote the words that are always said, and end on the part you would miss most if it stopped.

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