On Tradition

I've often wondered, how did that become a tradition? Sometimes the question arises as I hear of some odd antics of foreign peoples, other times it is in regard to my own family. Of course, it usually involves repitition and managing to get other people to join. I suppose when it comes to a country-wide tradition, it might be harder to start, but it seems that in my family traditions are becoming a dime a dozen. C. and I used to always bring up past traditions that ended somewhere along the way, whether it was stopping at the hot dog stand when we went to get the Christmas tree with Dad, shopping at the mall for HOURS (torture for 2 VERY active girls!) trying to get all of Grandma's gifts from Grandpa (who never does his oen shopping). My younger siblings must have become tired of hearing what once was and began to create new traditions. I hear about these new traditions throughout the year, but they multiply exponentially during the Christmas season. "We HAVE to [fill in the blank]! It's tradition" is something I hear all too frequently. Some of the "traditions" are pretty funny, like the little, stuffed, cartooninsh-looking duck, wearing orange and green. There is absolutely nothing about it that makes one think of Christmas, but it is now "tradition" to stick it on the Christmas tree. =P Pretty much anything that they do once is up for "tradition" status, and what determines what does and what does not become tradition is beyond me! We do have actual traditions (those things we do without fail every year), of those my favorite is cookie baking. Although I am on my own and in a tiny apartment, I decided I should still keep the tradition of baking cookies, so I did. I invited some friends over and we went to work. The result was a day of fun and about 10 dozen beautiful cookies (there is nothing like putting a couple of perfectist guys in charfe of decorating!), which were shipped off to college students in the form of care packages. =)

I hope you noticed the spice dolphins. They are a very important part of any Christmas celebration! =P