The Art and Science of Family Traditions

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, and even society pressures us to have traditions around the holidays. Traditions are significant around the holidays. We want to bring people together. Traditions seem to be one of those things that creates consistency to give people something to look forward to. It is important to have traditions. Some traditions are made out of pressure, and we may need to let traditions evolve. I look at the traditions that we have around the holidays. Thanksgiving's coming up. It's going to be at my house this year. My family has never really loved the traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the heaviness of stuffing, potatoes, turkey, etc. When it's at my house, we do a traditional Thanksgiving feel, but we switch it up. It's a little healthier. For instance, instead of pumpkin pie  (everyone knows I love making pies), but instead of pumpkin pie this year, we are doing a pumpkin creme brulee that is a little bit lighter. We're having Cornish hens instead of turkey. My kids tend to like chicken better. Our kids look forward to it more. They don't really know what it will be each year, so that keeps it interesting too. It's not as predictable. That's one of our traditions. 

Another tradition that we have is we make a cookie tree on Christmas Eve. It's where you have different sizes of stars, stack them, decorate them, then eat them. So we decorate it on Christmas Eve. I didn't know that was a tradition until one Christmas Eve; I didn't do it. My kids complained, and they said, “It's tradition, Mom!” So we've done it every year since. 

Another thing that we do is something we call Hibernation Days. A lot of times, after Christmas, it is over, and it's still winter…snowy and cold outside; there's not much to look forward to in January. We created Hibernation Days. We plan different activities that you can do indoors to help the month go a little bit faster. Some of the things that we do are gingerbread houses and making homemade Christmas ornaments for the following year. We've moved some of the Christmas things out of December, and we do them after Christmas in January.  

One of the Christmas traditions that I have for myself is a countdown. When my kids were little, I remember we did the paper chain. That was fun. Then I came up with this great advent with gum, made from two lengths of different ribbon sizes. We used to use the zebra stripe Fruit Stripe gum because when you take it out of the package, it has cute colors of stripes on the packaging. We did that for a lot of years. Then I realized that the first few times, the kids were excited about opening up their gum, but after a while, it was, “Nah, I don't want a piece of gum today. I don't want to take the gum out of the advent calendar. It got less exciting as we got towards the end of Christmas.

 So I switched that out. Instead of gum, I put little slips of paper for me that helps me stay on task with the many to-do’s leading up to Christmas. I still use the advent; I now use it for a different purpose as a task list. This year Clint got me a 3D wooden advent calendar. It has little doors to hide gifts inside each cubby. I've talked about getting one for a couple of years. We're going to try that this year. Instead of gum every day, we'll have different gifts and little pieces of candy. I don't know what will go in there yet, but I will try that this year. We shall see if that's a little bit more fun. (Quick update as we are going to print…this has been a huge hit with my kids, and even guests who come to our house have opened a door and gotten their little gift. We will continue this tradition each year in the days leading up to Christmas)

With traditions, first of all, as I explained about the Christmas countdown ribbon advent, be flexible. If something's not working, switch it up a little bit. Don't be stuck on those traditions because you do them yearly. Don't make it so sacred that you can't make a change. For example, instead of doing the gingerbread houses before Christmas, we do them after Christmas now. Same with making ornaments. We used to try to cram it in before we would put our Christmas tree up it. We put a lot of pressure on everyone to get together to get that done. It took stuff off our plates for what had to be done before Christmas. And it gave us something to do after Christmas to extend the holiday! When we make ornaments, it feels relaxed, and we all look forward to it.

I feel two criteria are necessary for a beautiful tradition to stick. First, so many Christmas movies show people doing all the rules like ice skating, cooking, baking, doing a Secret Santa, or 12 days of Christmas for someone. Ice skating was never our tradition because I didn’t know how and had no desire to learn. But maybe that is your family’s thing. Don’t let the picture-perfect Christmas depicted on TV be your guide. That's not a reason to create a tradition. Traditions, the ones everyone looks forward to, usually evolve. They happen naturally because it’s what everybody loves. The Christmas Eve cookie tree…I didn't even know it was a tradition until my kids told me it was.

I love to cook. When I thought of this idea of Thanksgiving, doing some non-traditional foods was popular because the kids weren't excited about all the turkey and stuff. Now instead of dreading the feast, everybody looks forward to Thanksgiving. They want to come to our house for Thanksgiving. They know it's going to be good. They know it's going to be interesting; they know it's going to be fresh…a little healthier. They might be complete after the meal but won’t feel stuffed for hours afterward.  

Back to the two criteria for having great traditions:

#1 - It is something that you love AND that everybody in your family loves. For instance, making homemade ornaments. All of our family are artists. We love that pleasing expression of our creativity in lots of different ways. Making ornaments is an enjoyable way for us to express our creativity. For some families, that is not the case. If you're not crafty, don't feel you have to do that. That is not for you. Find something you love that everybody else in the family can get behind. 

Before I go any further, I  want to say it could be just one tradition. It doesn't have to be lots of things you do every year. Maybe your one tradition is that you all love to travel. You go on a family vacation every year. You plan it together and go someplace that everybody's excited about. It doesn't have to be 15 traditions. Narrow it down to what everyone loves and will love during the holidays. They're going to look forward to it. Even one tradition provides that excitement of the time leading up to the holidays, through the holidays, and sometimes even after the holidays. So the first criteria is…what do you love that everybody else can get excited about too.

#2 It solves a problem. What problem seems to happen yearly around the holidays that a tradition could solve. For instance, with our Hibernation Days, we had the problem of all these things we love to do but not enough time to cram it all in before Christmas. There was no time for unexpected parties or spontaneous events. What problem around the holidays could you create a tradition that would help solve it? Go back to last year in your mind. Allow yourself to go back and relive Halloween through New Year's. What is a problem that tends to come up during the holidays? It happened last year, and it was there again this year.

Maybe there's a tradition that you could create that would help that not be a problem. The one that came to me was that I leave your shopping to the last minute every year. When I do this, there's no time to enjoy the last few days leading up to Christmas. I have to hurry and get everything wrapped. It's down to the wire. I don’t always have time to be thoughtful about my gifts and what people would enjoy. Maybe that's your problem. What would be a tradition that you could create that would solve that problem? Here’s a thought…maybe everybody in your family loves shopping. You schedule a couple of days, the second Friday and Saturday of November, before the shopping rush. You and the whole family go shopping or get together; everybody has their laptops if you do online shopping. You have cocoa and Christmas cookies. (I’m making this up as I go.) You invite everybody over for a party and get your shopping done. Or maybe you do one day with the family and allow yourself a quiet day for that final shopping day. Perhaps one day is an online shopping party, and one is a physical shopping day, and you go to a favorite restaurant after. Whatever the problem is, there's a tradition that could help you solve that problem. As long as the first criteria are met, it could work!

I love to cook. It may not work for me to plan a cooking day if no one in my family loves cooking. But I know everyone loves to eat my cooking. So that fits Criteria #1 - I love it, and everyone else can get behind it. If everybody has a talent for cooking or baking, you could choose a cookie baking day together or a cookie exchange where they bake at their respective homes and bring the finished product.

Make sure those two criteria are met, and you’ll have a winner. You probably won’t have as many traditions. It will release you from the pressure of doing the traditional traditions. The ones you keep will be really special. You're going to look forward to them. And everyone you really care about will look forward to them. Your traditions will bring people together like they are supposed to. 

Your exercise today is to consider your current traditions and check them against those two criteria. First, do you love it, AND does everybody get behind it? Does it solve a problem? Then look at issues that are still happening around the holidays. How could you create a tradition that would solve that problem?