Creating and Blending Traditions

Reconsidering how we spend the holidays

My fall garden is thriving.

I’m from Detroit, and it’s a beautiful place to be during the winter holidays because it’s always cold and usually snowy. One of the things I used to do when I was in college, and then later as a single woman living on my own, was decorate a tree. I love decorating trees. They’re just so pretty. I didn’t want to wait until having children, or having a partner to say, “I can now celebrate Christmas.” I can celebrate Christmas because it comes every year. Decorating a tree was a tradition I grew up with that was important enough to me to make it my own. 

There are some holiday traditions from our childhoods that we want to keep. Maybe there were lights outside the house, an activity that the whole family did together, or a particular dish that we loved eating. As we move into adulthood and create a home for ourselves, we can incorporate these practices into our lives in ways that work for us.

We can also build new traditions. Years ago I started making overnight french toast for Christmas Day. I make enough that I can freeze it and make french toast sticks later on. It’s delicious. In college, a friend created “Presents Day” with her siblings. At the top of the year they would exchange gifts as a New Year’s tradition. They didn’t grow up with that but it worked for them as adults.  

It can sometimes be challenging when we want to move away from the traditions we grew up with. There may be family members who don’t understand, or take it personally if we say:

• I’d like to spend Thanksgiving with my friends this year.

• I’m going on a girls’ trip to bring in the New Year. 

• I’d like to get together the week before the holiday and have the actual holiday at home. 

• I prefer to pull names rather than buy multiple gifts.

• I will bring a few dishes to share since nothing on the menu fits my diet. 

Part of being an adult is figuring out how we want to occupy the space of adulthood and setting boundaries around how we spend our time. Just because our family always did something doesn’t mean we have to continue doing it. Our parents and other family members had the opportunity to decide what traditions they wanted to participate in and now that we are adults, we can do the same.

Wanting to do things differently doesn’t mean that our childhood was terrible, it may just mean that there are new things that we want to embrace at this moment in time. As we transition through the different stages of our lives there will be things that we want to keep and integrate into our lives as we move forward, and things that we want to let go of. It is ok for us to create our own unique holiday experiences that feel good to us. 

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Journal Prompts

What holiday traditions from your childhood are you keeping? 

What traditions did you discover or create as an adult?

A Few Things That Caught My Attention This Week

• As the Holidays Approach, Family Rifts, Tensions, and Estrangements Are Top of Mind for Millions of Americans, by Dr. Joshua Coleman, in Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper.

• How to Love People Who Love Conspiracy Theories, by Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic. 

• Setting Boundaries With Family Can Be Uncomfortable. So We Asked A Therapist How To Do It, by Sami Roberts, Alicia Valenski and Maria McCallen for Skimm

• Meeting Your Partner’s Parents? 7 Tips to Make a Great First Impression, by Acamea Deadwiler, M.S. in Mind Body Green. 

• Give and Take on the This is Uncomfortable podcast. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you stream podcasts.