After the Apocalypse, We Light Candles: Rebuilding Family Rituals in a Post-Pandemic World
Sunday, March 23, 2025.
Once we had Sunday dinners, bedtime stories, and snow days. Then came the pandemic, which turned routines into risk assessments and left rituals abandoned like shopping carts in an empty parking lot. Now, families are trying to remember how to gather again—without flinching.
Welcome to the quiet, sacred work of rebuilding. After years of chaos, families are crawling out of survival mode, blinking in the sunlight, and asking: What do we still believe in?
This post isn’t about nostalgia.
It’s about something far more ambitious: spiritual reconstruction through crockpots, game nights, and Saturday pancakes.
What Exactly Is a Family Ritual?
A family ritual is any repeated, symbolic activity that conveys meaning, structure, and belonging. This includes everything from singing the same lullaby every night to attending Grandpa’s infamous Fourth of July barbecue where someone always burns the corn.
Sociologists distinguish rituals from routines. Routines are what we do (e.g., brushing teeth). Rituals are how we do it and why it matters (Fiese et al., 2002). They’re emotionally charged acts that hold a family’s narrative together.
And they matter. Research shows family rituals promote emotional regulation, identity formation, resilience, and even language development (Spagnola & Fiese, 2007).
Rituals are how we say: This is who we are, and this is how we love.
The Pandemic Broke the Clock
In early 2020, time became elastic. Monday looked like Thursday. Bedtimes vanished. Dinner happened whenever the mood struck—or not at all. The clock, once a structure, became a suggestion.
Family rituals collapsed under quarantine. Holidays were canceled, grandparents were pixelated, and birthday parties involved drive-by honks and tearful cakes.
A longitudinal study by Prime et al. (2020) noted that ritual disruption was a key predictor of family stress during the pandemic. Parents didn’t just lose control—they lost symbolic meaning. And that loss still echoes.
The Meme Response: “Is This a Core Memory or Just Trauma?”
On TikTok and Instagram, a post-pandemic ritual genre has emerged:
“We started Sunday pasta nights in lockdown and never stopped.”
“Our kids still do ‘quarantine walks’—even though quarantine’s long over.”
“Every Friday we rewatch a movie from when the world was shut down.”
These aren’t just sentimental. They’re rituals forged in crisis—now infused with unexpected sacredness. Some families even kept pandemic habits because they finally felt like a family.
In the digital era, memes became new rituals: shared laugh-therapy across the void. They filled a temporary gap—but now families want something tangible again.
Philosophical Pause: What Is Sacred Without a Church?
Traditionally, rituals were the domain of religion. But as institutional affiliation declines—especially among Gen Z and Millennials—families are left to build their own scaffolding of meaning (Pew Research Center, 2021).
So what happens when bedtime stories are the new liturgy? When Tuesday taco night is more binding than a wedding ring?
Rituals aren’t just about what we believe—they’re about what we repeat in order to remember who we are.
How Families Are Rebuilding—One Small Act at a Time
The good news: families are hungry for ritual. Not for elaborate ceremonies, but for anchoring gestures that tether children (and adults) to rhythm, predictability, and care.
Here’s what’s working:
Tiny Weekly Markers: Pizza night. Pajama movie night. Friday cleaning dance parties. Small, but predictable.
Tech-Free Transitions: Lighting a candle before dinner. Three breaths before bedtime. Rituals of presence.
Repair Rituals: Apology circles. “Do-over” hugs. Post-argument tea. Acknowledging rupture and rebuilding trust.
Grief Rituals: A candle for lost loved ones. A “remembering jar” on holidays. Letting sadness sit at the table too.
Rituals don’t need to be beautiful. They need to be reliable.
What the Research Says: Rituals Make Families More Resilient
Family rituals are correlated with better emotional outcomes for children, including lower anxiety, higher self-regulation, and stronger familial bonds (Markson & Fiese, 2000).
They’re especially important for neurodiverse children, who benefit from predictability and symbolic coherence(Schaaf et al., 2011).
And for parents? Rituals help buffer against stress by creating temporal structure, especially during uncertainty (Spagnola & Fiese, 2007). When the world feels out of control, families fall back on what they can control—ritualized moments of connection.
What We Lost—and What We Can Still Rebuild
We may never get back snow days (thanks, Zoom). But we can reclaim the sacredness of dinner. Of bath time. Of weekend waffles.
And in doing so, we create continuity—not just from pre-pandemic times, but across generations.
The question is not: Can we go back?
The question is: What kind of family are we becoming now?
Final Thought: Ritual Is How Love Becomes Visible
Love is abstract. Ritual makes it concrete. Ritual is how a tired parent says, “You matter, even now.”
It is important to show up for the people you love; when these precious souls are born, when they marry, when they celebrate new life, and when they pass from this world.
Family connection, true family connection does the hard thing, not the easy thing. Anything less is self-absorption and narcissism (yeah, I’m talking to you M & C)
We are all muddling through difficult, historic times.
And after the collective trauma of a pandemic, ritual is also how families remember they’re still alive—still connected—and still capable of joy, even in sweatpants and uncertainty.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Fiese, B. H., Tomcho, T. J., Douglas, M., Josephs, K., Poltrock, S., & Baker, T. (2002). A review of 50 years of research on naturally occurring family routines and rituals: Cause for celebration? Journal of Family Psychology, 16(4), 381–390. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.16.4.381
Markson, S., & Fiese, B. H. (2000). Family rituals as a protective factor for children with asthma. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 25(7), 471–480. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/25.7.471
Pew Research Center. (2021). About three-in-ten U.S. adults are now religiously unaffiliated. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/
Prime, H., Wade, M., & Browne, D. T. (2020). Risk and resilience in family well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. American Psychologist, 75(5), 631–643. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000660
Schaaf, R. C., Toth-Cohen, S., Johnson, S. L., Outten, G., & Benevides, T. W. (2011). The everyday routines of families of children with autism: Examining the impact of sensory processing difficulties on the family. Autism, 15(3), 373–389. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361310386505
Spagnola, M., & Fiese, B. H. (2007). Family routines and rituals: A context for development in the lives of young children. Infants & Young Children, 20(4), 284–299. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.IYC.0000290352.32170.5a