This season is such a tradition driven time, and it’s wonderful, isn’t it? Tradition provides so much security and comfort. As Tevye so wisely said, “Because of our traditions everyone in Anetevke knows who he is and what God expects him to do.” I think that living in a world so full of change, and human beings’ emotional ineptitude with adaptation causes us to crave tradition. We need these tiny slices of consistency because we need to feel grounded and secure. It may seem stupid that a piece of the right kind of pie on Thanksgiving or unwrapping pajamas on Christmas Eve makes us feel safe, but we are simple creatures and sometimes we need simple assurances that life goes on and that we are a part of a never ending circle, bound by tradition, something that, to us, in our limited scope, will not fail us.

In reality, traditions do fail, people change, ideals change, entire religions and nations change- but somehow, in the moment that we are here, those little rituals mean so much. Because my little family is so young, most of our traditions are borrowed from past generations. Chris and I are slowly picking and choosing what rituals will speak Christmas to us.

Growing up, we had several traditions, some born by accident and some passed down from grandparents. Some were unique to our family, and some were pretty typical. I think most families have a certain way of opening the Christmas gifts. Ours was interesting, not so much in the how aspect of things, but in the when. Now, from what I hear, most people open gifts on Christmas or Christmas Eve. We tended to travel to grandparents homes on the holidays and we had a small car. There was barely enough room for our family of five and the few gifts we packed for others, let alone for our own gifts, so we opened things early.

It started out innocently enough. We were going to Gramma’s a few days prior to Christmas so we opened the gifts right before we left. Once we found out that one didn’t have to wait until Christmas, the presents spent less and less time wrapped. Now, I really think that, despite my younger siblings pleading, things would have stayed wrapped had it not been for my Dad. If one of us kids wanted to open a present, we knew Dad was most likely to give in. In every other aspect of life, we knew to ask Mom, but when it came to Christmas presents, Dad was just a big push over. He liked seeing us kids get so excited, and we were going to open them early anyway, so why not open them three weeks early? Why not open them before all of the gifts had even been purchased? Sometimes you’ve just got to live a little!

The process always happened in the same way. My little sister Jan would ask dad if we could open just one. Just one little gift, that’s all, then she’d be happy and she could wait for Christmas for the rest. Of course, if she got to open one gift then it would stand to reason that we all needed to open a gift, to be fair and to keep things even for the Christmas morning unwrapping we all knew was never going to happen. As soon as we had all opened one gift, Dad would get a boyish gleam in his eye and the next thing we knew the only thing left under the tree was the skirt!

Now, this tradition isn’t one that we are practicing in our family, as it was unique to my family’s circumstances. But it did form bonds between us and made our family stronger.

One thing that we are doing is opening pajamas on Christmas Eve. This is a tradition form Chris’ side. Another tradition that we are starting all on our own is to read a children’s book about Christmas each day until Christmas Eve, when we read the Bible story of the Savior’s birth. So far, we can only read for about a week prior to Christmas, although I hope to someday have enough holiday themed books to read for all twenty-three days. Another tradition I grew up with is driving around town to look at Christmas lights. I hate this tradition because I get carsick and suffer from light induced migraines. It’s not one I’m eager to carry on.

It has been interesting for Chris and I to adjust to the blend of traditions. He is still amazed at how camera happy my side is (his family gives each other camera as gifts and then you never see a photo; I think it’s bizarre. In my family you see photos of everyone else taking photos. Equally bizarre.) I adjusted quickly to clam dip as a holiday appetizer, but his family’s line up according to age and then walk into the living room to see what Santa left is still kind of odd for me, fun, but odd. Chris gets my passion for lefse, but doesn’t understand why I’m so appalled that the TV is on instead of everyone chatting and playing games. The good thing is, we both enjoy this adjustment. It can be fun to suddenly experience a whole new set of traditions. Now if we could just marry someone who actually sang carols around the piano, I’d be stoked. Right now I’m just biding my time until Jonas and Maggie are taking piano lessons; after that, let the new traditions begin!