What are common housewarming traditions?

Which ones you come across usually depends on family background and where you grew up, rather than any single rulebook. Bread and salt is one of the best-known, wishing the household plenty to eat and plenty of flavour in life. Gifting a plant is common too, standing in for growth and new beginnings; a broom sometimes accompanies it, symbolically sweeping out bad luck before anything else moves in. Some households mark the move with a simple home blessing or a quiet toast on the first night, rather than anything formal. These customs vary by culture and family, and plenty of people mix and match or skip them in favour of a party. None of them are rules; they're simply ways people have marked moving into a new home, and you can take or leave whichever suits you.

Whichever tradition you follow, a personalised new home gift of the actual house adds something that lasts longer than the ritual. See also the bread and salt tradition.

Written by Craig Fearn, Our House Print.