The Power of Tradition

Christmas brings out some of the best traditions. One of my favorites is Christmas Day breakfast. My mom would always serve breakfast on a silver tray in front of the tree. For as long as I can remember, we would eat our sausage and Moravian sugar loaf on Spode Christmas china as we opened gifts, Neil Diamond crooning carols in the background. I think I was out of college before I realized there may be a slight conflict of interest for a Jewish man to sing about Santa Claus, but it worked for us. 

There have been plenty of people who have asked me if leaving my Christmas tree up all year is going to become one of our new traditions. While that thought is seriously tempting, the answer is no. It's been a fun ride, but the old girl has got to go. Plus, I have a few friends who are already planning an intervention if it's not down by the 27th. 

One reason the tree stayed up all year stems from another tradition from my younger years. Growing up, my mom used to always read Christmas books to me. I loved when she turned her Southern drawl up a notch to read The Cajun Night Before Christmas. My all-time favorite, though, was The Tree That Stayed Up Until Next Christmas by Robert Kraus. It tells the story of a family of animals that keeps their Christmas tree up all year, adding decorations for each holiday so that they finally end up with a "Grateful Thanksgiving, Happy Halloween, Sane Fourth of July, Happy Easter, Happy Birthday, Happy Valentine's Day, Merry Christmas tree."

Please note, the characters in this book just keep adding ornaments to the tree, they never take any off. Over the past year, I've had well-meaning friends suggest that I change out the ornaments for each holiday, but look, y'all, if I could take 'em off, I could take it down.

Anyway, when our tree was still up in February, this book inspired Jackson to ask if the tree could please, please, please stay up until his birthday in April, and who could tell that sweet, almost five-year-old face no? After all, a boy only turns five once. 

When I was growing up, my mom's best friend Barbara would come up from the beach and help us decorate for the holidays. Since my mom is an only child, Barbara easily became just like an aunt to me. She has been at more birthdays, graduations, weddings, and baptisms than I can count. At Christmas, she was always the expert with the lights and probably helped cultivate my OCD tendency to go in and out of every branch instead of just around and around the tree. 

One year, my grandmother fell and broke her hip a few weeks before Christmas, so Mom and I had to go to the hospital in Florence. Knowing hanging out in a hospital wasn't a whole lot of fun for a child, Barbara drove up from Pawley's Island to take me home to Rock Hill so we could decorate. We had the best time trimming the tree and listening to the Stand By Me soundtrack. At one point, I decided to be extra helpful and set out the nativity. In keeping with her love of china and silver, my mom's nativity was made out of porcelain, and unfortunately, Joseph's delicate little pinky finger broke off when I was taking him out of the box. We still laugh about how I tried to diffuse the situation by explaining poor Joseph must have lost his finger in a carpentry accident. 

Like my mom, Barbara helped foster my love of reading, gifting me with some cherished titles, including Miss Rumphius and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  The Tree That Stayed Up Until Next Christmas was her favorite Christmas book too. I remember snuggling up on the couch with her as she read it to me. I can still smell her Estee Lauder perfume, her signature scent.  

A few years ago, Barbara began suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's. Mom and I could see it progressing in little ways, as she would forget names or repeat herself. Last year, Barbara and her husband Ray came to our house on Christmas Day, and I watched her pick up the book that had been our tradition and say, "This looks like a cute book," like she had never seen it before. She read it with the wide-eyed excitement of a child turning the pages for the first time, and while it broke my heart, I felt lucky that I'm still blessed with all of our special memories, memories I treasure more and more with each passing year.

When we're young, we take for granted that holidays will always stay the same, that the same faces will be around the dining room table year after year. I have several friends who are getting ready to celebrate their first Christmas without a special loved one. And I have several more friends who are still trying to get used to the empty seat at the table after a year or more. My heart goes out to them because I get it- the ache of the loss never goes away completely. Even 20 years later, I still miss sitting by the fire with my Mimi, watching It's a Wonderful Life, and snacking on "trash," her homemade version of Chex mix she only made at Christmas.

Traditions have the power to bridge the past and the present. They make us feel like the people we miss most are still right here with us. They can take us from laughter to tears and back again in a matter of minutes. In a constantly changing, sometimes crazy world, traditions provide us comfort and give us something to count on.

Your tradition may be having a gingerbread house decorating contest. It may be having the neighbors over for potato soup after the Christmas Eve church service. Or it may even be getting to open one gift on Christmas Eve, knowing good and well it's going to be Christmas pajamas. A tradition is not so much about the act as it is about the feeling that accompanies it.

So this Christmas, embrace your traditions, no matter how silly they may seem. If you don't have any traditions yet, start one. It doesn't have to be super complicated. In fact, the simpler, the better and the more likely it is to be repeated year after year. Just think of a favorite food, a special song, or something that makes your family unique and run with it. After all, you only have to do it twice for it to count as a tradition in my book.