Families can often be defined by singular things. You’ve got your sporty families where much of their time is taken up by devotion to the local GAA club. Outdoorsy families who are always camping or cycling. Intellectual families who like to have heated debates over dinner. Musical families, rich families, farming families. It seems to produce a distinct culture within the home which comes with its own set of familial traditions.

I sometimes read about people who have come from this kind of background, and they usually describe their childhood in the most glowing terms, and how that defining feature – such as a love of sport – remains as the family glue.

And I always think, what about the rest of us? While most families love and treasure each other, how they interact or what they do collectively tends to be similar: the park, day trips, watching TV, family dinners. In the course of all that, families can start to develop their own habits, what start to feel like small family customs. But as the kids get older or the parents run out of energy, they can just as easily fade away.

For instance, when some of my now-adult children were younger, I would get them ready for bed by announcing, “It’s time to take out the trash.” This would be followed by 20 minutes of hysterical giggling while I attempted to wrestle them into their pyjamas. It was a ritual that went on for some time, but eventually faded away when they felt too old for this kind of thing and I began to fear I’d have a heart attack if I kept doing it. Every evening, for years, we would watch The Simpsons, but that too gradually stopped.

The most long-lasting family habit was the Box Of Doom. I can’t quite remember how it came about, but I know I came up with the phrase. (Yes, I could be more childish than the children). Back when Son Number One was young, we kept sweets and biscuits in an old Roses tin. When that rusted over, it was replaced by something plastic and functional. The container didn’t matter, just that when he, and later, his siblings, were looking for a sugar hit I would sententiously announce: “Time to open the Box Of Doom.”

The phrase became so ingrained that we would all use it casually, often to the bafflement of any visitors in the house. We never bothered explaining where it came from.

Still, the now-abandoned family traditions remain as a collective memory, while, occasionally, new ones spring up. Daughter Number Four has just turned 10, and has begun to have opinions on what clothes she wants to wear. I’ve a few opinions as well. Fortunately, those views largely coincide, making me her unofficial fashion consultant. So, in advance of her 10th birthday we were dispatched to go on a clothes shopping trip.

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Her stamina can wane. Even as I was picking out tops and skirts and holding them in front of her, she began not-so-subtly hinting that she would like to get a chocolate cookie instead. Yet we worked through what had potential and what didn’t and then moved to the dressingroom to vote on our preferences. Rather expensively for me, we agreed on everything. Even Daughter Number Four was slightly embarrassed by how much we got.

My enthusiasm for the clothes-buying was admittedly informed by the knowledge that it almost certainly won’t last. In a year or two, shopping like this with your old man may become a little embarrassing. Which is the way of things.

We went home, and displayed our swag to Herself who generally approved. Then we had dinner. And afterwards, as she always does at that time of the evening, Daughter Number Four asked: “Will you take down the Box Of Doom?” Happily, after three decades, some traditions have lasted.

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