Traditions. Tradition Troubles, & Codes

A friend of mine is giving a workshop on family traditions. She called me for ideas. So, while fixing supper I've been tossing some thoughts about in my mind.

What motivates the creation of a tradition?

Traditions seem to spring up around personal and family values. Our family values discussion of ideas, stories, and family history. My sisters and I created a family newsletter we called The Leafy Alternative. I began a newsletter about raising our family. I call it The Family Messenger. My father introduced his daughters to "Table Topic Dinner Discussions". He would read excerpts from magazine and newspaper articles and ask us questions.

My husband and I began our own version of discussions. They began as "car talks" or "couch talks". These began innocently. While driving home from church we would review behavior -- what was appropriate and what wasn't. My mom would play "practice church" with her girls. So I tried it with our girls. We "practiced" sitting still on the couch for the length of the church service. The girls might have felt like hostages at first. However, they could hear and smell a meal being prepared while they waited and their Dad would visit with them. "What did you talk about in your class today?" This often led to lively and interesting discussions for us all. I would chime in from the kitchen. We credit these "talks" as the beginning of our on-going family conversations and discussions--loved by all!

Families that value music create traditions involving singing or playing instruments. The "instruments" played in my home while growing up were the radio and the record player. We spent many happy hours singing along with Joan Baez and other folk singers.

My absolutely favorite tradition is reading aloud. When I was of college age living at home between semesters I recall reading aloud the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander to my two youngest sisters, with whom I temporarily shared a bedroom. Then I would sing a hymn to them before we went to sleep.

Holidays are tradition magnets. At birthdays we always sing, "For she's a jolly good fellow" and give three cheers, "hip-hip-hooray!". I joke that our family tradition is "holiday birthdays".

A summer tradition of my youth was the yearly oddysey to my mother's girlhood home. My mom would sew matching outfits of "crop-tops" and "peddle pusher pants" for us to wear. We would be riding the Greyhound bus from our small Northern California town to Idaho and it helped us be identified as a group. Once there the summer trip would not be complete without a drive in the back of a pickup up into the Targhee National Forest to pick huckleberries--just as my mom's family had done each year while she was growing up.

I wondered what other traditions my parents might have had so I gave them a call. My dad says as a boy he ate his mother's homemade biscuits every morning for breakfast. He says his dad voted straight Democratic ticket since 1932. His family listened to the Christmas Eve radio broadcast of calls coming from all over the world to wish the king of the British Empire overwhich the sun never set a "Merry Christmas". He told me his dad enjoyed listening to a German singing "Silent Night" over the radio on Christmas Eve. He also listened to the heavy-weight championship fights on the radio.

Be aware of traditions that are unneccesarily binding. I recently read in a novel where a tradition of wearing rented high school graduation robes was introduced to do away with an exclusive tradition of girls wearing a new white formal dress and carrying red roses. I remember being frustrated in a small town congration where a particular women's event was observed the same way every year so as not to offend previous leaders of the church women's organization.

I fell into "tradition troubles" of my own making. Every Christmas each of my girls received a doll. Multiply six girls by ten or more dolls each and pretty soon the house is full of dolls. The same problem happened with Easter plush animals. Another tradition which backfired was giving an elaborate birthday party for each girl every year, including a cleverly decorated cake. Luckily, in this case the older girls picked up the baton and orchestrated the games for the younger girls. They even learned how to decorate cakes. I also ambitiously began making scrapbook albums for each girl. It's easy for traditions to become demanding taskmasters.

Traditons should not be confused with "code". It is my personal code not to shop on Sunday. It was my grandmother's code to wear a hat and gloves when she went to town.

When I married, I soon learned that my husband and his family place great value on doing routine tasks together. Whether this is a tradition or a code I have yet to decide.

I highly recommend the book THE SEVENTEEN TRADITIONS by Ralph Nader. Another proponent of traditions is the late author/illustrator Tasha Tudor. I have thoroughly enjoyed and recommend MRS. SHARP'S TRADITIONS by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

Traditions are a way of celebrating and creating hooks upon which to place our memories and values.