One of our nightly rituals is to sing in Youngest's room before bed. SHE loves it, it is practically like oxygen to her.
It goes a little something like this:
Youngest and I go into her room and sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and The ABC Song. Then she gets off my lap, barrels down the hall to the stairs (sometimes it looks like she's going to go right over the edge of the stairs) and yells "OLDEST, DADDY, IT'S TIME FOR BAH, BAH BWACK SHEEP," waits until she hears footsteps coming, then barrels back into her room to await their arrival.
Everyone comes in, we say "One, Two, Ready Go," then sing it with different variations. Sometimes Youngest sings it "sad style," which ends up making us all crack up so much we can hardly finish. Sometimes Oldest adds a little "Say WHAT?" right after "Have you any wool?" which is also very funny. Especially the time we tried to teach Youngest to sing it too and this is how it went:
Hey Youngest, say "say what."
"What."
No, Youngest, say the word say and the word what.
"What."
Repeat after us: "say."
Silence.
"Say."
Silence.
"Say."
"What."
No, say "say" first.
"What?"
Are you going to say this?
"No."
We don't do all of this because it's funny, though (even though that's a great side benefit). We do it as a family ritual and we all like it so much now that if one of us isn't here, we're all a little sad. The funny thing is that I don't even remember how it started. But I guess that happens with family rituals - they become so much a part of your family it seems like they were always there.
What family rituals do you have to share?