Holding Tight to Tradition
The holidays keep us true to who we are
A green-and-white gingham couch is a furnishing from my childhood. From as early as I could form memories until June of this year, my parents had the same couch.
When it came time finally to replace it, my mom consulted me before selecting a cream, tufted couch. So, I knew what to expect when I first laid eyes on it, but still it came as a personal affront. My parent’s living room wasn’t supposed to change.
I come from a family of, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it and if it is broke, fix it.” We keep things, including holiday traditions.
I grew up in a vaulted log cabin that my dad built mostly on his own with no prior construction experience. You simply cannot put a 6-foot artificial Christmas tree in a log cabin with 26-foot ceilings.
In the days preceding Thanksgiving, we would pile into my dad’s Chevrolet flatbed truck and drive an hour to a tree farm in Dade City to select the tallest tree there. I was filled with pride when passersby clapped upon seeing my dad expertly fell the tree. I would smile some more and wave at people in cars on the way home. A 21-foot strapped and wrapped tree on a truck is a sight to behold.
With the tree in place, we listened to classic Christmas music and ate homemade Christmas cookies while taking all day to decorate ol’ Tannenbaum with mostly handmade ornaments that spanned three generations.
In the following weeks, my dad would string lights and make wreaths which we would pose in front of in plaid shirts for the yearly family Christmas card. My mom would take to the kitchen, whipping up batches of her peanut butter fudge. My sister and I would begin rehearsal for our annual performance of The Nutcracker, something we did for many more years than I care to admit.
December has long been my favorite month because in a world that constantly spins in unexpected ways, it brings the expected, the routine, the traditional. Until, one year, that changed.
As the story often goes. You meet someone, and he changes your life. What I wasn’t going to let that man change was my Christmas. I intended that he celebrate the holiday with his family in Tallahassee, and I would be with my family in Lakeland.
That lasted for a year before I realized I had a future with this man and that I wanted us to be a part of each other’s traditions. For his family, Christmas Eve is a big ordeal. For mine, Christmas Day is the real deal.
His family always ordered pizza on Christmas Eve. I didn’t quite get it. Wasn’t pizza for sleepovers or when parents didn’t feel like cooking? Yet, when I saw his family members’ faces light up while piling slices onto plates, I understood this was much more than pizza. It was tradition.
We would continue this for years, even after moving from Tallahassee to Nashville. We would spend Christmas Eve with his family, then drive through the night to spend Christmas Day with mine.
Last December, due to unforeseen medical circumstances, my now husband and I were unable to travel to Florida. At first, I was devastated, but it turned out to be one of my most cherished Christmases.
On Christmas Eve, we ordered too much pizza with too many toppings and polished off two bottles of wine during an all-day classic Christmas movie marathon. The next day, I made the meal my own parents always make on Christmas Day, and we opened presents via Zoom. All of this occurred while we were snowed in — our first white Christmas.
That Christmas reminded us that tradition binds us to those we love. We clasp tightly to what has always been and savor the peace and joy that it brings.
