Traditions

Jenn B posted something interesting recently. It's a post all about traditions and how she feels that her family has very few of them.

I have felt the same way for quite a while, wondering if my kids were somehow deprived because we don't do the same thing every year for any holiday, even Christmas. Our first Christmas, we had only been married for 6 months, we were expecting a baby very shortly, and we had no money. Times were crazy. The next year, we moved right before Christmas so things were in disarray there, too. The following three Christmases we spent at my grandparents' house which we enjoyed, but during the last one of those I was expecting a baby in Feb so that put a damper on things. After that, we moved again right before Christmas and I spent those three days over Christmas in the ER. The next one after that I was postpartum by less than a week.

This year, we'll be moving quite a while before the holidays are upon us and I'll have the added bonus of having half my kids in school. It's also becoming more important to us that we have some sort of solidarity, some sort of grounding element that gives us something to look forward to as well as something that reminds us that where ever we are, we're home. We have no idea how long Man will be in the Army or even how often we'll be moving.

Like Jenn, though, there are some traditions that keep us together and give us daily closure: we have an evening routine in which everyone participates, we have family tastes that we enjoy indulging (like good, fresh fruit or a new, funny movie) and we have TONS of inside family jokes.
And then I think about the movie Jenn cited, Fiddler on the Roof, and recall what following traditions accomplished for the main characters: anger, dissolution of family and community, and a profound loss of trust among friends. If you trust someone completely based upon tradition, or personal character that is based purely upon tradition, then were does that trust really rest? I've thought about the Book of Mormon and the Bible and how the people in it talk about converting the "bad guys" from the "traditions of their fathers" to the true and living Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you grew up with the bad guys, wouldn't it make very little sense to switch one set of traditions with another? Even those who grow up with a strong set of traditionally correct moral values must, at some point or another, evaluate whether those values are based purely on following in someone's footsteps or a truly earnest search for the best way to live and love. Over the past few years I've forsaken the "goose pimple" culture of my particular church, dismissing those stories which are passed around, which may or may not be true, simply for the sake of obtaining a small rush or a tear in the eye, which just ends up being a purely physical reaction to a knee jerk emotion from a glurge. Truth doesn't need sap to convert an earnest seeker. Testimonies or sermons don't require tears in order to prove sincerity of belief. Teaching moments don't always require a lecture or in depth explanation in order to make an indelible impact. While I've found a great deal of personal benefit from eschewing this practice, there are many people at my church who don't find very many ways to relate to me if I don't share the goose pimples with them.

So, why oh why, would I make my kids slaves to traditions that will completely dispel their ability to enjoy what is truly enjoyable about life if those traditions aren't carefully observed? There are some customs that are immensely enjoyable in which I immensely enjoy participating but for the love of mercy, the tradition itself isn't the goal. Our evening routine is simply one way to ensure that we spend at least a half an hour each day together as a family, doing things that are important to Man and me. The things we enjoy as a family are our way of sharing what we feel are positive experiences with our kids. And who doesn't think that eating a field-ripened strawberry, cultivated in fresh, open, cool, coastal air isn't a positive experience? If you don't, cool. We'll find something else to enjoy together, but if you don't like strawberries I'll still be your friend. If you like pickled beets and I don't, but you make our relationship all about pickled beets, then I'm afraid I'll be moving on.

Traditions, traditions. Sometimes they are simply a way to bring out something you don't get to enjoy very often like the beautiful advent wall hanging my mother made for us. I look forward to pulling it out this year and using it again not because my Christmas would be ruined without it, but because it greatly enhances my enjoyment of the time leading up to it, and it's a way to share my mother's love with my children.

Sometimes traditions are a form of dependency. It all depends on what you allow them to mean to you.