traditions: old & new

While I'll be the first to remind you not to mess with my traditions, I've learned in recent years---somewhat reluctantly, I might add---that traditions are not the be-all and end-all.  They're simply a tool for teaching, for investing, and for passing God's Truth on to the next generation.  While some traditions we've outgrown (or have simply put on the shelf till grandchildren *grin*), others remain firmly and strongly in place.  I'm regularly looking for ways to engage our teenage sons, to change and flex with where we're at, rather than stubbornly clinging to the way we've always done things.  In some cases, I'm looking to launch new, fun, and meaningful traditions that will take us through the next 40 years.

My youngest son and I are two peas in a traditional pod.  He gets me.  Last year he wrote this little essay for school:

"I am a person who LOVES tradition. If my family breaks a tradition, I get mad. We have many Christmas traditions like: Christmas Eve gift opening, visiting nursing homes to give cards to the elderly, reading Luke 2, eating Chicken Cordon Bleu for supper Christmas Eve (which we are not doing this year, but we’re eating steak, so I don’t mind), drinking sparkling grape juice,  and decorating the tree while Mom tells the story of each ornament.  It would be hard to choose which one is my favorite, they’re all so fun: the carbonated juice, the smell of nursing homes, the sound of my Grandpa reading Luke 2, the feeling of wrapping paper.  All of these things just scream Christmas to me.

As I mentioned earlier,  my family is considering breaking a couple traditions in the next few years, like eating steak and getting a real tree. That’s okay, because as a family gets older, it changes:  people leave or grow older, tastes of food and style change, we want different things, and we realize that some traditions we have or had are kind of silly.  So next year as I brush the pine needles out of my socks and pick steak out of my teeth, I can remember the old traditions and look forward to the new ones.

Until then I can enjoy this year with the old traditions, resting in the fact that while some things change and some people leave, there are a few things that won’t. There will always be Luke 2, there will always be sparkling grape juice, there will always be ornaments,  and most importantly,  there will always be family."

A few photos from a new tradition...our Elf party: