Traditions Serve Us – Not the Other Way Around
I first posted this in 2022 but it is evergreen and I return to it here.
For most of us, the Holidays are about family traditions. These traditions often serve as rituals, marking space, connecting us, and acting as the guideposts for the Holidays. Before children, Linda and I would go out to see Christmas lights with friends as part of a Christmas Eve gathering. When our children were young, we were far busier with prepping for the next morning and that tradition fell away with a new one taking its place: Watching the movie Trading Places after the kids were asleep. Christmas morning has the ritual of stockings and presents, after a breakfast of pastries of some kind. I am sure many of you have your own family activities. They are warming, comforting, and often “just how it is done.”
These traditions can turn, however, when they become an end unto themselves. We can have anxiety that we are not “doing it right” this year. Maybe we cannot go see Christmas lights because someone is sick. Maybe everyone cannot make it Christmas morning. Is Christmas “ruined” because of that? It can be for some. Enacting the rituals of the season can take on a life of their own. No longer do they serve us, but we they. Now, instead of nurturing and comforting, they are appointed tasks that must be fulfilled, bringing angst and anger if we fail. Now we are servants to The Tradition.
Another problem with traditions can be loss. Enacting a tradition might be too painful, for instance, if it is strongly associated with a loved one who has passed, or a marriage that has failed. We might feel an obligation to engage in the ritual regardless, pushing and pulling ourselves through the pain. Again, this is us serving the tradition instead of it serving us.
Do you have a tradition that no longer provides comfort or acts as a positive sign of the season? If so, let me offer you this thought: What would happen if you did not do it this year?While that question might be scary, I assure you that the world will not come to an end. It will not make you a bad person. The purpose of these rituals is to serve our spirits and souls. If they no longer do so, engaging in them is not only destructive to you, but it is destructive to the memory of the tradition itself.
Like my wife and I traded Christmas Lights for Trading Places, you can do something else this year.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year from TalkForward.
