We all have our ways of celebrating our cultures, executing our life philosophies, remembering our ancestors and loved ones who meant so much to us, and we all can probably agree that we tend to stick to a set of conscious and sub-conscious rules within our homes that makes life for each of us comforting, rewarding, and on track. Keeping the structure afloat within our homes can be quite challenging at times, and many of times, we may feel as though there may be a lack of culture, of heritage, or of rules within our home that keeps the family grounded and connected. This is why I created a customized family guide book for my family and I. Sort of a creed book for myself and our children to refer to for grounding and important life lessons and rituals. I will share with you some things and ideas that I included within our family book and I hope you will take these along with our own creativity to make a memorable and sacred family guide for your family.

“We honor the Most High, and we are guided by the wisdom of our ancestors, as a family, we strive to protect, nurture, and support one another when the other is in need. We will not fight, we will not argue, but embrace each other with love and acceptance. We represent what true family is about and we promise to never forget that there is always someone there waiting to love.”

The first thing that I did was buy some mini 3 ring binders, this will make it easy to update and ad to your guide book. Then we created a family seal, we used African/Egyptian symbols, Initials of our family members, and patterns. You can make this seal even more special by getting a stamp made with the seal on it, so that you can sign letters with it that you may send to friends and family, or even get some mugs/t-shirts with the seal on it. Print labels and paste them in the center of each of your guidebooks. Next I created the dedication page(who or what the book is dedicated to, it could be an affirmation or a list of special people it is written for/family members) table of contents.

Here are the things in which we included in our family guide book that you may want to consider incorporating in yours:

This is where you and your family come up with a statement that states what the importances and mission is of your family. Such as: “We honor th Most High, and we are guided by the wisdom of our ancestors, as a family, we strive to protect, nurture, and support one another when the other is in need. We will not fight, we will not argue, but embrace each other with love and acceptance. We represent what true family is about and we promise to never forget that there is always someone there waiting to love.” Be creative and as specific as you can when creating our mission statements, and be sure to get everyones input on what they think should be included and remembered in a statement about our family.

This is similar to th mission statement, however, these affirmations do not have to be written by you and your family. You can take affirmation from spiritual references, poems, speeches, and so on and include them.

This is where you include the names of each family member and all of the special things that make up their personality. For example: date of birth & favorite birthday cake, birth sign, favorite color, favorite food, favorite music/song, favorite movie, favorite book, personality traits, etc.

This is a special section and can be fun to create. We made up our own food pyramid. This is really important, because your family, and especially your children can see what foods your family eats and does not eat, and can see which foods your family feels is important for health and growth. Be creative, like we have life at the center of our pyramid, symbolizing to always be thankful and remember that life in itself is a substance of health. This is great to do especially if you are a vegetarian/live food/or vegan family...make up your own vegan pyramid and nutrition rules on what you do and don't eat. Include in this section a list of foods and the amount of intake that you feel are prominent in your family's health...Get healthy & creative!

This is where you lay out the rules on how your home should be kept and the consequences of an unclean abode. State the importance of cleaning up behind yourself and the proper ways to clean each room in the home. For example, for our kitchen and baths, I included the basics such as clean counter-tops, tub/shower, toilet, sweep floor, and the special part for us is once all of the rooms are properly cleaned, is to light an incense and candle, creating a sacred, warm, and sweet space.

These are basic guidelines for your family. The set rules on what you as parents expect and what things you as a family do or do not do.

Include things such as personal grooming, life survival tips within the world.(ie: always respect your elders, respect other peoples beliefs, do not surround your self with negative people, never be greedy, treat someone else's home as you would take care of your own, etc. This is a great reference for your kids)

This section is really fun. Make a calender and make note of everyones birthday, mothers day, etc, but also make up our own special days that you and your family will begin to observe. For us it is Family Fun Day & Culture Day. We set a day each year where we will always take the time to spend with the family, and on Culture day, we explore different cultures, enjoy food from that culture, and so on. We also include special days that you do not see on regular calendars, like Marcus Garvey's birthday, moon cycles, Historical moments within our culture, the birth date of Egyptian men & women such as Maat, Aset, Horus, etc. I think you get the point, make your calendar special and make note of dates that represent your family and culture. Be sure to have these on set days and treat them as you would any other holiday.

This section is pretty self explanatory. You can state what your family's spiritual philosophy or religion is and why it is important to your family structure. You can also include verses or spiritual quotes that the family members can always turn to. For instance we have quotes for when one is feeling angry, depressed, dis-respected, jealous, hurt, sad, confused, love, family, and so on.

Include blank pages for notes and mini journaling for each family member. This is great if you have family meetings with the kids!

These tips are just the minimum of the things that you can include within your family guide book. The sky truly is the limit here, and having this special book not only keeps the family structure sound, but can be a great thing to pass down and keep within the families. Imagine having a family guide book from your great great grandmother. We need more of this within our homes, making the pure existence of our families important and special will create a structure, a culture, and a bond for not only you and your mate, but most importantly for your children and theirs to come!