The Joy of Family Traditions
The children and their friends, donning pajamas, faces smattered with spaghetti dinner, were giddy. They had discovered them: golden tickets and curious sleigh bells which, to grown-up ears, were distinctly broken.
“Mom? Can’t you hear it ringing? Listen!” insisted Lorelei as she and little brother Gryffin jangled them, yet again, at my cheek. I shook my head densely and shrugged.
“Just believe, Mom!”
The anticipation built as my friends and I herded our three families outside, bells and tickets in hand. The children’s cherubic faces beamed red and jolly in defiance of the frosty blue night.
“May I have your golden tickets?” the fathers asked sternly, bowing in train conductor hats and sporting thick moustaches grown for the occasion. The passengers lined up rapturously for rapid-fire ticket punches, then boarded their respective train cars. We three moms in elf hats converged dotingly with candy canes and mugs of steamy hot chocolate. Then our three minivans, windows frosted with snowflakes and the words “Polar Express,” caravanned off to the Overland Park Arboretum’s Luminary Walk—our North Pole.
Consider for a moment what it is about the holidays that make them so brilliantly magical. Perhaps it’s the huddle of loved ones reunited, ancient carols angelically resurrected in children’s voices, the warm glow of a menorah illuminating long-ago miracles. Those things that stir us take as many forms as art, all unique expressions of something reaching beyond the individual and into the tapestry of our interwoven lives. Indeed this magical stuff of holidays is its own genre of art: the rooting practice of tradition.
TRADITIONS REASSURE
In a world where family knots are becoming increasingly tattered, where security (in familial, financial and societal systems) seems an elusive thing to grasp, we pine for a collective anchor. Enter the tradition, that simple practice that reassures us we are part of something far-reaching and indelibly larger than ourselves.
Traditions repeat. They lend rhythm and predictability to our lives, urging us to slow down and focus on life’s moments. Children, having so little control in their vast worlds, thrive on routine. Similarly, they discover a perpetuating comfort and security in seasonal rituals, which help them conceptualize the passage of time.
Perhaps Gretchen Rubin, best-selling author and self-proclaimed chaser of happiness, phrased it best: “Family traditions mark time in a happy way and give a sense of both anticipation and continuity. Research shows that traditions, routines, and rituals boost physical and emotional health. And they’re fun.”
TRADITIONS RECONNECT
Consult Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and there’s no getting around it: human beings possess a deep psychological desire for acceptance and belonging. Tradition draws us out of isolation into a social embrace, securing our place among a larger tribe. This tribe can stretch into the breadth of a world religion (consider the enduring practices of sacrament and seder) and yet can be as intimate as a kindred friendship. Whatever its size, we are accepted and known as we together partake. And the spirit of unity opens us to a joy beyond ourselves.
Within families, traditions define a shared identity. We wax fondly over our unique rituals: returning to the same mountain cabin; slumber parties beneath the tinsel-smattered tree; Grand-mère’s bûche de Noël; the berakhot of Hannukah. Each tradition weaves its own colorful, thick-spun thread into the inimitable fabric of a family, strengthening it through.
TRADITIONS RENEW
“When parents and children cultivate traditions, every time they go back to that tradition it renews the emotional energy and bonding of the past,” writes motivational author and speaker Stephen Covey. To his point, scientific studies support that the pleasure of anticipating something good trumps the experience of the thing itself.
French novelist Gustave Flaubert would add to this notion that, “pleasure is first found in anticipation, later in memory.” And tradition completes this cycle, forcing past and future into a rousing collision that propels us fully into the present, fleeting yet ever lingering.
“All is well again,” tradition whispers and settles the soul. For a moment, we check our ears and—if even but an echo—hear the sleigh bells ringing. A thrill of hope is felt, and things of old carry onward. Something among us resurrects, and the collective whisper repeats, “All, again, is good and well.”
Wendy Connelly is mom to two bell-ringing golden-ticket holders in Overland Park.