Sunday, November 30, 2014

On Traditions

"I have new traditions now." -Blair Waldorf, Gossip Girl

I work at a residential high school where tradition is a big deal. Some traditions--playing REM's "End of the World" at the end of every dance, for instance--are backed by years of other students doing the exact same thing. Other "traditions" develop when something happened the previous year and the students are looking for a reason to make it happen again. In fact, my coworkers and I often joke that something is a "tradition" if it happens once and a "real tradition" if it has happened twice or more.

One tradition I enjoy is taking a photo with my boss in a kitchen at a Christmas party. The tradition started out as a picture of us in her kitchen at the Student Services Christmas party, but we forgot one year, so we took a picture in a different kitchen at a different Christmas party.


I am noticing that other traditions in my life are going the way of the kitchen picture, and that is okay.

On Thanksgiving night, I watched an old home movie with RWD and one of my closest childhood friends, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw my grandparents laughing and smiling on the screen. I had almost forgotten what life with my extended family was like before my grandmother had Alzheimer's and my grandfather had cancer, but there they were on film, proving that there was a time when things were simpler and I had fewer teeth. As I was lying in bed that night, I reflected for a while about my family, our traditions, and how they have both been important in making me who I am. I thought about the major changes in recent years--the passing of my father, adding RWD to my family, and joining RWD's family--and how exciting it is to carry on our family's traditions while starting our own as a new family.

Friday night, RWD joined my sister and me in putting up our family's Christmas tree. We always wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas, and my mom never helps. Over the years, the people involved in the process change, and I was excited to have RWD to help pull things out of the attic and test/untangle the bubble lights. Saturday night, we joined his sisters and their husbands in a delicious and fun birthday celebration, and it was exciting to be surrounded by the people who will be joining RWD and me in new, fun traditions in the coming years. Change certainly does not have to be a bad thing.

Similar to how there are "traditions" and "real traditions" at my school, there are traditions in my life that are worth keeping exactly how they are and others that have have to change--sometimes minimally, other times drastically. I am thankful for the opportunity to continue the real traditions with the people I love and make new ones as time goes on.

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