Creating Holiday Traditions
Creating a tradition can seem overwhelming. But traditions don't have to be time consuming or expensive. A tradition is simply an action--consistently performed at a predictable time. When the action is performed everyday, we call it a routine: bedtime stories just before being tucked in at night. When a routine happens on special occasions, we call it a tradition: drinking hot cocoa in front of a fire on Christmas Eve. You may drink hot cocoa in front of the fire at other times during the year, but if you do it every Christmas Eve then it becomes a Christmas tradition, forever etched in your family's holiday memories.
Every Christmas Eve, without fail, we knew our menu: my great aunt's homemade lasagna, salad and garlic bread. After stuffing ourselves, we'd each get to open one gift, and then my dad would take us to a Christmas Eve Candlelight service. Every Christmas morning I knew I'd find my stocking stuffed with oranges, grapefruit, nuts, and one wrapped gift. Santa predictably left our other toys in three groupings: mine, my sister's and a share pile!
My husband grew up with a Christmas Eve dinner of boiled shrimp, homemade french fries, and buttered rolls. Not exactly compatible with my aunt's lasagna! Blending traditions can be a challenge. Sometimes we adopt another's traditions, sometimes we create new ones. A tradition can be shared by many families around the world, or can be unique to your family, or even unique to just you. A tradition can be time you spend with family or can be your family sharing with others: serving Christmas dinner at the homeless shelter, shopping for items to donate to the local food pantry, filling shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child.
However traditions come to be, there is something special about family coming together and investing time toward a common goal--even if the common goal is relaxing by a fire. In our hectic world, just enjoying one another seems to happen less and less. Whether you eat a special meal, sip cocoa by a roaring fire, or sleep in a tent outside Best Buy waiting for their "Day after Thanksgiving" sale to begin at 4 a.m. (more power to you!), taking time to create a Christmas tradition is a gift that will keep on giving.
Is there a holiday tradition you want to pass along to your children? Start this Christmas. Decide this week what you will do, then share your ideas with us...maybe yours will be the new tradition we adopt this year!