The Power of Tradition

Today was a a special day for my family - Easter, April Fool's Day and a birthday celebration!  For me, most of the fun of holidays and special events has always been the anticipation, but more importantly the traditions involved.  Some of the traditions in my household come from mine and my husband's childhoods (and some of them likely from our parents' childhoods) but many are brand new traditions we've created ourselves.  One of my favorite parts of parenthood so far has been creating traditions for my family - some of which I hope they will carry on with their own families some day.

Sometimes we may wonder if keeping up with all of the traditions is worth it.  There is a difference between true traditions - things we do to create meaning that can be passed down from generation to generation - and just keeping up appearances.  In this digital age full of social networks, posting what we decide is the ideal picture of our lives is an easy trap to fall into, and if this is the reason you keep up with a tradition then, NO, it's not worth it.  But if creating and maintaining traditions brings joy to you and your family or provides precious memories and opportunities for your children to carry them with them into adulthood - then YES, keep it up!

There are so many reasons I think traditions are powerful and allow us creative opportunities to show our love to our past and to our future:

Traditions create memories
We have hosted a kids' Halloween costume party since our oldest was about 3 years old.  I have pictures of both of my kids and their friends and their friends parents in all sorts of fun costumes.  We often talk about things like "that time we stuck our hands into a bucket with cold spaghetti and thought it was guts!"

Traditions help us mark the passage of time
From the time I started school, my mom took a first day of school picture in front of the refrigerator.  She could tell how much we'd grown by how close we were to the line between the fridge and the freezer.  She has a first and a last day of school picture of my brother and me for every school year.  When my kids started school, I did the same thing, but instead of the refrigerator, I use the back door.  It's fun to see how much the kids have grown each year.

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Traditions simplify decisions
What are we going to do for the holidays?  That's not a question you have to ask yourself if you have a tradition.  At our house, we have an annual Labor Day party on the Sunday before Labor Day.  It's always in the backyard, we always grill, we always ask guests to bring a dish to share and their own lawnchairs, we always have glow sticks, we always have a campfire, and we always have smores.  There are so many fewer decisions when you have a tradition.

Traditions communicate meaning
There are many competing traditions around Christmas and Easter.  My family chooses to participate in both the fun and the religious traditions (ex. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and the story of Christ's birth, death and resurrection.)  We use traditions to communicate meaning.  One of those traditions is one that we did just this morning, resurrection rolls.  Every Easter morning, we make these rolls and talk about the Biblical meaning of Easter.  Today, my kids helped explain the meaning in this video

Traditions connect generations
As a child, every Christmas morning was spent at home.  After stockings and before gifts, we would read the story of Jesus' birth from the book of Luke chapter 2.  When I got married, we began spending Christmas mornings at our new home and our kids have always had Christmas morning at their home.  Each year, we read from Luke chapter 2 after stockings and before gifts.  We also read the same passage when we go to my parents house before opening gifts.  My kids know that this is what I did as a kid, and I expect this is one tradition that they will carry on.

Traditions allow our families to be unique
One of my favorite traditions that I believe is pretty unique to our family is that we eat Christmas breakfast at a truck stop each year.  This started the first year my husband and I lived in our current house.  There was a truck stop in town, and it was the only thing open on Christmas morning so that's where we ate.  It was good, and the waitress was so nice that we left her a big tip.  After we left we said, "Let's make this a tradition."  Well, a few weeks later, that truck stop burnt down....we didn't let that stop us, we just found a different truck stop.  We've done this ever since.  There have been different truck stops, and we've turned down Christmas meal invitations to keep up our tradition.  It's been neat to see the kids get excited about leaving the waitress a nice tip!

Traditions are just fun!
We made up a really silly and fun tradition last Cinco de Mayo.  The kids wanted to see the Tron remake and it just worked out that we had some time on May 5.  My oldest and I stopped by the store and picked up some chips, salsa, and queso.  We went home and announced the new Cinco de Mayo tradition was eating our snacks and watching Tron.  The kids loved the movie and just the other day, they mentioned how we'll watch it again on Cinco de Mayo this year!

The really fun part about traditions is there are so many opportunities to create them - major and minor holidays, firsts, lasts, even just days of the week!  Something as simple as dinner out on a Friday is something I've heard my husband recall about his childhood.  It doesn't have to be grand or expensive to count as a tradition.  It just has to create joy, have some consistency, and be able to be recreated by our families or friends in the future.  What kinds of traditions do you have in your family and how have they helped you maintain order in your life?

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Resurrection Roll Recipe

• 1 can crescent rolls
• 8 large marshmellows
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 4 Tbps (1/2 stick) butter or margarine

1. Preheat oven as directed on crescent roll package
2. Microwave butter (or margarine) in a microwave safe bowl in increments of 10 seconds until completely melted
3. Mix sugar and cinnamon in separate bowl
4. Open and separate crescent rolls, place on ungreased cookie sheet (these represent the tomb)
5. Coat a marshmellow (represents Jesus' body) in melted butter (represents oil) and then roll in cinnamon sugar mixture (represents spices)
6. Place marshmellow on a crescent roll
7. Roll the crescent roll around the marshmellow and make sure there are no holes (represents Jesus' body being placed in the tomb and sealed)
8. Repeat with all marshmellows 
9. Bake as directed on the crescent roll package 
10. Cut open to reveal an empty center (represents the empty tomb)