Traditions

Webster defines Tradition as "an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)"


To me and my family the holiday season that we have entered into is all about traditions. As a boy growing up in central Texas, we had a few things that you could call traditions. Things like we would eat a large meal on Thanksgiving day somewhere and that we would have a Christmas tree up at some point in the holiday season if my brothers and sister and I were persistent, and somewhere on or around Christmas, we would eat another big meal and open our presents somewhere. These things might sound like traditions to you, but to me they were just tendencies given to the winds of convenience around the holiday season.

I love to go to lunch periodically with each of my children as the time allows for both them and myself. Needless to say, I am always busy with my work and lunch is something I only get to escape a couple of times each week My son is a paramedic in a neighboring community with a wife and a son and my daughter is a full time college student with a full time job as well. When that rare moment lines up where I can do lunch with them, I jump at the opportunity. It was on one such luncheon a few weeks back that I realized how my wife and I had firmly established traditions in our lives and the lives of our children that have given them peace and security in the holiday season. My son was venting his frustration at the ever changing plans of his in-laws for the Thanksgiving celebrations. He looked at me and said, "that is one of the things that I love about our family. I know every Thanksgiving day exactly where we were going to be and at Christmas I knew exactly where we were going to be. I never had to worry about it, we just knew where we would all be". 


Wow, as I soaked up that nostalgic moment of traditions, it took me back to the early days when my wife and I were first married. We each came from broken homes and then were each blended with new families from our parents second marriage and yes, quite frankly I hated the holidays and I especially hated Christmas. We never knew for sure where we were going to be and the only thing I could count on for sure was a pair of socks from somebody that just wasn't sure what I liked or wanted. My wife and I decided on that first Christmas that on Christmas morning, come what may, we were going to be at our home for Christmas. God has been gracious to my family and he has allowed that tradition to have never been broken in the 27 years that we have celebrated Christmas together. On Christmas morning, my children (while they were home) knew that on Christmas morning they were going to be in their beds waking up to their presents and to their family. There have been a few times that for one reason or another since they have left home and began families of their own that our children were not there on Christmas morning. That made me sad, but their was great comfort to me knowing that if they decided the night before to come home for Christmas, that their mother and I would be there. After all, where else would we be on Christmas morning, It is our Tradition.