Traditions

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." — Unknown.

I have recently become interested in how food traditions evolve in a family setting. This has led me to wonder what traditions are, how they start, how they disappear, and why they matter. First of all, what is a tradition? A tradition is an established pattern of behavior, belief, or custom that is repeated over time and often passed down from generation to generation. Traditions can be cultural (the Fourth of July), religious (praying before eating), familial (pancakes for breakfast every Saturday morning), or individual (going to the spa for your birthday).

Traditions can help us establish a sense of identity and fulfill our human need to belong. They remind us of our past, where we came from, our ancestors, and even the rhythm of the seasons. Traditions tend to have some of the following qualities:

• They represent something you value. Connection (like birthdays and anniversaries), gratitude, adventure, generosity, family history, learning, playfulness, remembrance, service, hospitality—whatever matters to you. The tradition becomes a way of repeatedly expressing that value.
• They are simple enough to be reproduced. A tradition that requires enormous amounts of money, planning, or energy is much harder to sustain. Small traditions often survive longer than spectacular ones. A good tradition can make everyday things seem magical. Here is an account of a tradition attached to the McLean family's Hootenanny Pancakes: "The greatest part about this pancake is that it 'poofs' while it's cooking and has all this glorious butter swirling around it. When you see the poofy edges are golden brown, bring it out of the oven and do this– I'm serious, if you don't do this, you'll not have the Hootenanny Pancake Experience– chant with all those who will be eating: "Hootenanny, Hootenanny, Hoot, Hoot, Hoot." Once, in a foolish moment, we did not do the chant and were miserable. Since then we have followed the true path of the Hootenanny, and joy has been ours." — Michael McLean.
• They have a trigger. Tie a tradition to something recognizable: the first snowfall, someone's birthday, the first Sunday in December, the beginning of summer, an anniversary, the first zucchinis from your garden, or New Year's Eve.
• They are predictable and contain something distinctive. Every Friday night we have pizza, or every time we see a Volkswagen Bug, we yell, "Slug bug!" and smack each other. The distinctive element can be almost anything: a food, object, song, toast, location, game, photograph, question, or ceremony. Eventually, people begin anticipating that element. It makes life more fun.
• Ideally, they allow participation rather than demand perfection. Just because a certain tradition has been around for generations does not mean that it is still a good tradition. If family members have to perform the tradition exactly the way its founder intended forever, it can become an obligation rather than a source of belonging. "Tradition is a guide and not a jailer." — W. Somerset Maugham.

Since we are now on the downhill slide into the holiday season, it might not hurt to take a look at our own traditions and see whether they are in alignment with our values. This will lead to either calm preparations or panic, depending on your current mental state. How much of the holiday pressure we put on ourselves comes from the traditions we are trying to uphold?

• They can evolve. Children grow up, people move, families change, people die, and circumstances change. Strong traditions often have a stable core but flexible details. There may not be enough time in your busy schedule to make Grandma's extravagant nine-layer carrot cake from scratch for Easter dinner. Maybe you have to use a mix. Maybe you have to buy three three-layer cakes and stack them. Maybe there is no cake, and you are eating carrot sticks while talking about how Grandma used to make a nine-layer carrot cake every Easter and how you associate Easter with carrots now. "Tradition is the illusion of permanence." — Woody Allen, Deconstructing Harry.

Traditions can be a wonderful way to unify a family. They can keep skills from the past alive. They can give us a formula to follow for important occasions: This is how we celebrate birthdays. This is what we cook at Christmas. This is what we do when someone needs help. They give us a shared language and, over time, become part of the story we tell about who we are. These are good reasons to keep them alive. "You can embrace nostalgia and history and tradition at the same time—it has to progress, or it can't survive." — Sturgill Simpson.

Traditions can also preserve things that should not be preserved. Unequal treatment of women, for example, has often been defended in the name of tradition. "It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men." — Wangari Maathai.

Traditions can also keep us from being creative or flexible, which can cause problems in communities, families, and marriages. Something does not become good simply because people have been doing it for a long time. "Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure, it is in decay." — Jiddu Krishnamurti.

I prefer to think of traditions in a good light. I also think it is okay to modify them when necessary and to drop them entirely if they no longer fit our lives or reflect our values. Making your own traditions is fun. Stealing other people's awesome traditions is fun, too. Apparently, Iceland has a Christmas tradition called Jólabókaflóð, or the “Christmas Book Flood,” in which books are exchanged at Christmas and the evening is spent reading. Add some chocolate to that, and I may have found my new favorite tradition. 😄

Maybe that is one of the best things about traditions: we are not limited to the ones we inherited. Every tradition had a first time. Something you decide to do this year may someday be something your grandchildren cannot imagine celebrating without.

If we are going to make a better world for our families, let's start better traditions—traditions that value peace, love, and joy.

Love and Hope,

Big Sky Baby