Family Matters Seminar: Traditions

via Travelin Oma's School Days

Homework: Do any or all. (Comment anonymously this time if you don't want to hurt feelings.) ~List five traditions you love. List another five that are past their prime, but are part of your life just because they're traditional. Idea:" I love making Valentine suckers, but the family sleepover is past its prime."

~Do you ever question or resent the way your family/in-law family handles holiday traditions? Have you ever said anything? What happened? Any tactful suggestions? ~Write about a tradition that has influenced your life in a positive way. Idea: "Our family always had family prayer before we opened the Christmas presents; my mom always wrote a letter to us on our birthdays; my grandpa always told us he loved us at Thanksgiving Dinner."

Traditions are lovely. Traditions are renewing. Traditions are connective. And they are sometimes burdens. I've lived on my own since age 18, more or less, and for awhile those brief visits with my family were all about tradition. Then I realized that perhaps I was remembering traditions as better than they really were, simply for the sake of calling them traditions.

Then I married and, since my in-laws were closer in proximity we spent most of the big holidays at their home. Once we had children, though, my husband and I decided that we would spend as many holidays as possible in our own home. Naturally there has been some backlash, but we choose not to heed it. You might say we are blazing trails of tradition as we go along.

Two years ago we discovered the joys of eating out for Thanksgiving. Some find it criminal, blasphemous even, but I'm a holy-rolling convert to the whole idea. Is the joy in the cooking, toiling and the inevitable cleaning? Or in the savoring, visiting and relaxing? And as for those beloved leftovers, well, Mr. J and I just aren't into it. A sandwich the next day is nice, of course, but beyond that, the sight of feast remnants in my fridge is not appealing. Really, leftover mashed potatoes just aren't good, and jello salad isn't really good in the first place, let alone as a leftover.

Of one thing I'm certain: Christmas belongs to us, our little family unit. We are creating our own feelings and memories in our own home on that glorious day. It's sacred to me, especially right now as my babies are are tender and innocent and just soaking up the magic of the whole season. I want to capture it all on my own terms. Grandma is welcome to join us.

There are some traditions from my past, though, that I hope to carry on. New pajamas on Christmas Eve, Valentine breakfasts. Also the small, every-day type traditions like eating dinner as a family nightly. "Thinking of you" notes tucked in lunch bags. Strawberry freezer jam. And of course, we have begun our own little rituals: homemade applesauce in the fall, day trips to Yellowstone and Jackson, bedtime stories together each and every night. I think, I hope, ultimately, it's these simple little habits that will become the dearest memories and cherished traditions.