Holidays are just another day on a calendar.
The magic doesn’t come simply because your 12 Months of Puppies calendar says “Fourth of July” in 6 point font. The joy of the occasion begins with traditions. They can be religious, cultural, or familial, whichever shape they take, they provide families, especially children, with comfort and stability. Traditions contribute to children’s feeling of security through repetition and presence.
Setting out the same glass village of houses that used to live at your Grandmas. Making meals as a family. Seeing who can come up with the most ridiculous rule for the egg hunt. Cutting down a tree from the same family tree farm on the same day each year. For kids, holidays can represent a reprieve from the pervading change of growing up. Friends change, school gets harder, you might have to move, but every year on your birthday, you get an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen and get to eat the first slice for breakfast with your family. By dedicating time to one another, families and communities bond through shared experiences, and help build identity, teaching children that they’re part of something larger than themselves.
For immigrants, the traditions they carry can be the largest piece of home they bring to a foreign place. Things like Tomato Day and Dia De Los Muertos, their mother’s recipes and their grandma’s morning prayers, traditions borne from every religion and region. These practices have shuffled across the globe, perhaps being scraped and prodded along the way, but enduring nonetheless, reminding those who leave of their home.
Traditions are a piece of history we can enact anywhere. They supplement identity, relationships, and comfort, reminding us of who we are. In a world that’s constantly speeding up, traditions give us a moment to slow down. To take in those around us, to be grateful for all we have, to celebrate. They don’t need to be grandiose. All traditions need is to be treated a little bigger than routine. A weekly family meal, a last-day-of-school popsicle, anything that can serve as a connection point and a milestone can be a tradition. Today, take a moment to reflect on the traditions you would like to keep, borrow, and begin.
