A tradition is the handing down of beliefs, values, actions, and customs to the next generation. Some of the traditions that I practice with my family are actions and customs that were handed down to me by my grandparents and my parents. Those long standing traditions have been a part of my holidays for as long as I can remember. At one point or another, probably as a younger adult I questioned the necessity of some of those traditions. Take for instance the family Christmas photo. As a young child this was the most dreaded part of Christmas eve. My grandparents had five daughters all whom had married and had children. My great grandparents were still alive and needless to say taking all those family photo in all the possible combinations took FOREVER! We just wanted to get to the presents. We already had to eat and wait for all the dishes to be washed. It was taxing to wait for your gifts, sometimes lasting until 10:00, which then had to be opened in the appropriate age order. By the time I was a young adult, I did not mind the wait, I just hated having my picture taken. By the time I was married with children I found myself standing in line and saying, "Yes, you have to have your photo taken!" We never got toys from my great grandparents but my grandmother was a wonderful sewer and every year we got new pajamas, made by her, sometimes with a matching housecoat. We looked forward to those pajamas and once opened everyone immediately put them on. My mother buys our children new pajamas. Our children look just as forward to getting them as I did and like myself as a child, put them on immediately upon opening them. My great grandparents passed on and so have that set of grandparents. We now gather at my mothers for Christmas eve. Somethings, like the tradition of having our family photo taken and of opening gifts in order of age have stayed the same. They are traditions.
Other traditions in my family were started by us with no intent of making them a tradition. They just became. For the last five or six years we have gone as a family to a local tree farm and picked out a tree. Two years ago we started cutting our own tree. Christmas morning we fix a BIG breakfast and invite the grandparents and various others to join us. It is a big production that is talked about all year. I inadvertently started a new tradition last year when we changed our answering machine message to a Christmas carol read by paragraph from each of our family members. In this category you know that things have become a tradition when any variation in theme results in weeping and wailing from your children. This could even be over something as simple as the placement of the Christmas tree!
Other traditions are intentional. We chose them and we intentionally made them to pass down our beliefs and values. When I became a Christian the focus of my Christmas holiday season radically changed. As such, I felt like this must be reflected in our celebrations during the season. One of the traditions that I started involved a wall hanging of a Christmas tree with 25 felt pieces, each bearing a symbol of Christ. Starting on December first we read specific passages of Scripture pertaining to that symbol and sing a hymn. The children take turns hanging the symbols onto the tree. For many years that was the only time our family had what might be called a devotional time together. It was and still is a sweet time of togetherness and worship. We have since added an advent wreath to this tradition and enjoying lighting the candles and following an advent reading through the month of December.
