Traditions
Oct 19th, 2005 by Accidental Thinker
A comment from Jamie Dawn on one of my posts last week got me thinking (whoa, that’s dangerous!) about traditions and how they come about. In my family, we’ve never started traditions on purpose. They just kind of evolve. We do something once just because, then repeat at some later date under similar circumstances, and then suddenly you find yourself as an adult sitting on imaginary spots for no other reason than because somewhere along the way, it morphed into a “tradition.” And even the silliest traditions carry on, because traditions bring memories and warm, fuzzy feelings of continuity and sharing and belonging to something.
A lot of traditions revolve around holidays, and it’s no different for us. One of my traditions for years with my sisters has been going to the movies on Christmas Day. In my family we always had the family gathering and opened the family presents on Christmas Eve, which was a tradition from my own mother’s growing up years. That left Santa for Christmas morning, and by late in the afternoon we were usually ready for some new kind of action. When I reached driving age, we decided rather spontaneously one Christmas to go to the movies, since the movie theater was the only place open. We repeated on one or two subsequent years and then, presto chango, we had ourselves a new tradition. The only difference now is that we alternate between Thanksgiving and Christmas, since we have to rotate holidays between our family and the respective in-laws. Except for the years when we break the tradition altogether because we are getting old and are simply too tired to sit through a feature-length film after the hard work of engorging ourselves on holiday cuisine. Now you might say the new tradition is breaking the movie-going tradition!
What are your traditions?
On Christmas night everyone comes to our house, including one
daughter’s in-laws. After we eat, we have a tradition of playing a
game: Everyone brings a wrapped gift for “the game,” as it is simply
referred to. We draw numbers from one to say 10 (usually we number from
10 to 12 people). The person who draws number 1 gets first pick of the
“grab bag gifts.” They open it and it’s theirs. For the moment.
The person who draws number 2 then picks a wrapped gift and decides to
either keep it, or to take what number 1 had opened, and then number 1
has to take what number 2 had opened. The person who holds the number 3
then picks a wrapped gift, and can keep what s/he unwraps or trade it
for what number 1 or number 2 is holding. And so on until all the
presents have been picked and unwrapped and swapped around. There’s
generally some gift that everyone wants, and some gift that everyone is
desperately trying to avoid being stuck with. It’s fun. Sometimes a
particularly hideous item is recycled the next year. For example, there
is a size 48 double D bra hiding somewhere in my basement just waiting
for this year’s game. I got stuck with it two years ago.
Several years ago, we started having ice cream sundaes on Thanksgiving
eve. My Hubby loves ice cream, so we get all the flavors and toppings
and have at it. We’ve tried to keep this every year, but there have
been times when we’ve skipped it due to other things on the schedule. I
LOVE the holiday season! I look forward to it so much.
“…then suddenly you find yourself as an adult sitting on imaginary spots…” lol
Since we lost My father-in-law two years after we got married we’ve
come to realize that traditions are a great way to remember someone and
it is the only way left for us to pass a little bit of him on too his
granddaughter. So the traditions that we have been spending the most
time engaging in lately are ways we play with our daughter that similar
to how my father-in-law played with his daughter. Play times and
activities she remembers with an amazing amount of fondness.The Lumpy
My family really doesn’t have any traditions. I will go visit my mother
on Thanksgiving and Christmas and have dinner, but that’s about it.I
see a lot of couples around my age who are trying to establish their
own family traditions but having to battle between two sets of in-laws
who balk at it. My ex refused to alternate holidays because her mother
expected us to be there, leaving my mother with leftovers. So not fair
to do that to adult children.
Kids love tradition. Do something a couple of times and a kid will
place it into the “tradition” category. “But we ALWAYS leave leftover
ham for Santa.” (ONCE! I was out of cookies!) The thing that stands out
in their memory, when associated with a special event or time of the
year, becomes and instant TRADITIION!
For Thanksgiving we always have not only our family over for the big
Turkey Dinner, but often we invite friends who are away from their
families for the holiday. But the best part of the tradition… is that
all of us go around the table one by one and say what it is that we
have to be THANKFUL for! Not only is it a nice tradition, but it sort
of puts the whole holiday in the proper perspective! We all have SO
MUCH to be thankful for that we often just take it for granted.