Ten Cabin Traditions Worth Starting This Year

Every cabin seems to collect its own set of rules. The first person awake makes the coffee. Wet towels go over the railing, even though somebody always says they shouldn't. The good chair by the window belongs to whoever got there first. If you catch the smallest fish, you still have to hold it up for a picture.

Nobody sits down and decides these things. They just happen a few times, and before long, that's how the cabin does it.

"Cabins aren't remembered for how they looked. They're remembered for what happened around the table."

The traditions that stick usually aren't complicated. They don't need matching shirts, printed schedules, or a long list of supplies. They're the things everybody expects without having to ask. The breakfast you make on the first morning. The game that comes out when it rains. The same picture taken near the dock every summer, with everyone standing a little taller than they did the year before.

Here are ten cabin traditions worth starting, though there's a fair chance your family has already started a few without realizing it.

Ten Cabin Traditions to Keep Coming Back To

1. Make the Same Breakfast on the First Morning

The first cabin breakfast should be easy enough to make before everybody's fully awake. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee usually cover it. Somebody can cut fruit if they're feeling helpful. Somebody else can stand near the stove and eat the first piece of bacon while claiming they're only checking it. Making the same breakfast each year gives the weekend a starting point. Warm a bottle of Raspberry Whole Fruit Syrup while the pancakes finish and set everything in the middle of the table. It doesn't matter if the first batch gets a little dark. Those are usually the ones the cook eats while making the rest.

2. Have Coffee Outside Before the Day Gets Going

Somebody at the cabin always wakes up earlier than everybody else. Instead of trying to be quiet in a kitchen where every cupboard sticks and every floorboard squeaks, make coffee and head outside. Sit on the dock, the porch steps, or whatever chair isn't still wet from the night before. The lake will probably be calmer than it is later in the day. You may hear a loon. You may hear somebody inside drop a pan and say something they hope the kids didn't hear. Either way, you've got a few quiet minutes before breakfast.

3. Take the Same Picture Every Year

Pick one spot near the cabin and take a picture there every time you visit. It could be at the end of the dock, beside the old sign, or on the front steps where everybody has to squeeze together. Don't worry about matching clothes or getting everyone to look at the camera. One kid will be holding a fishing pole. Somebody will still have wet hair. The dog may be halfway out of the frame. Years later, those are the parts you'll notice.

4. Keep a Cabin Guest Book

A guest book doesn't need much. Leave a notebook and a pen in the same drawer every year. Before anybody heads home, have them write down something that happened. It could be a fish somebody caught, a storm that knocked out the power, the card game that went on too long, or the morning a moose stood near the road long enough for everybody to see it. Kids may write two sentences and draw something that doesn't look anything like the animal they claim it is. Keep it anyway. In a few years, the book will be better than anything hanging on the wall.

5. Let One Puzzle Stay Out All Weekend

Cabin puzzles usually take over one end of the table and stay there until checkout. Pick one with enough pieces to keep everybody busy but not so many that it starts causing arguments by Saturday afternoon. People will work on it in shifts. Somebody finds all the edge pieces. Somebody else keeps trying to force pieces into places they clearly don't fit. A piece will go missing and turn up under a coffee mug. If the puzzle doesn't get finished, slide it onto a piece of cardboard and put it away for next time. There's no rule saying it has to be done in one weekend.

6. Play a Game Everybody Knows

Every cabin needs one game that comes out after dinner or when rain keeps everyone inside. Cards are easiest. So are cribbage, dominoes, and whatever board game has been sitting in the same cupboard since 1987. The rules should be simple enough that nobody spends half the night reading instructions, though someone will still remember them differently. Let the argument happen, settle it as fairly as you can, and keep playing. By the third year, even the rule argument becomes part of the game.

7. Keep One Shelf Stocked for an Unplanned Meal

A cabin pantry doesn't have to be impressive. It just needs enough food to cover the morning nobody wants to drive into town. Keep coffee, pancake mix, crackers, pasta, soup, peanut butter, and a few jars on one shelf. A jar of Cherry Jam can handle breakfast toast, afternoon biscuits, or the snack somebody makes after everyone else says the kitchen is closed. Check the dates once in a while. Cabin cupboards have a way of keeping things long after anybody remembers buying them.

8. Have One Evening Without Phones

There may not be much cell service anyway, so you might as well make something of it. Put the phones in a basket or leave them charging in another room for one evening. Play cards. Sit by the fire. Tell the same stories everybody has heard before. Let the kids wander between the table and the dock until someone finally notices it's getting dark. You don't need to announce that you're making memories. That tends to ruin it.

9. Make the Last Dinner from Whatever Is Left

The final cabin dinner should use what's still in the cooler. Half a package of bacon. A few eggs. One onion. Bread that's starting to get dry around the edges. A handful of potatoes and three different kinds of cheese. Put it all in a skillet, make sandwiches, or call it breakfast for dinner. If there's a little Blackberry Jalapeno Jam left in the jar, spoon it onto grilled cheese, burgers, or the last few crackers on the counter. Nobody needs to know what the meal was supposed to be.

There's something satisfying about clearing out the refrigerator before the drive home. There are fewer containers to pack, and the meal usually tastes pretty good because nobody had to make another trip to the store.

10. Leave One Thing Ready for Next Time

Before locking up, leave something ready for the next visit. Restock the coffee. Put fresh cards in the game drawer. Replace the flashlight batteries. Write a note about where the life jackets ended up. It doesn't have to be much. The next person through the door may be you, tired from the drive and wondering why nobody remembered coffee filters. You'll be glad somebody thought ahead.

The Traditions You Didn't Plan

The funny thing is, the traditions your family keeps may not be any of these. Maybe somebody always buys donuts on the drive up. Maybe the kids jump off the dock before unpacking. Maybe your dad makes eggs in the same dented pan every Sunday morning and refuses to use anything else. Maybe everyone complains about the old couch, but nobody wants it replaced.

Those things count too. A tradition doesn't need a name. It just needs to happen often enough that the cabin feels strange without it.

What Everyone Takes Home

Cabins change over the years. A porch gets rebuilt. The old aluminum canoe finally starts leaking too badly to ignore. Chairs move around. Someone paints the kitchen and everybody says they liked the old color better.

The things people carry home aren't usually about the cabin itself. They remember where they sat at breakfast. Who always dealt the cards. Who burned the first pancake. Who said they'd clean up and quietly disappeared toward the dock. They remember the stories told around the table, including the ones that got a little better every year.

That's how cabin traditions start. Somebody does something once. Everybody likes it enough to do it again.

Don't worry about making the weekend memorable. Make breakfast, deal the cards, and leave the rest alone.