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Issue 27 - December, 2003 Tradition... Tradition! Dear Friends, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come..." As the disbelieving eyeballs of bank tellers and customers peered at us in astonishment, my children and I continued to quietly carol in as unobtrusive a manner as possible in that most unusual setting. Why were we in such a place? Because friends who work there expressed a strong desire to share in our family tradition of caroling our friends. . .even in a bank. How did caroling in oddball places become a family tradition? The answer is twenty-years in the forming, with many fits and starts to get us going. May my struggles and lessons in forging traditions bring you hope and encouragement in this season. In my last year of college, I rode with a friend up to British Columbia to attend one day of her class at Regent College. The professor, a fascinating Christian communicator, spoke that day on a subject about which I knew very little: tradition and ritual. "Tradition and ritual are the glue that holds families together. They give a strong sense of belonging and continuity, which is absolutely vital, especially in today's culture. . ." He emphasized that each family needed to come up with its own traditions, but, as a helpful explanation of what was involved, he went on to describe some of the traditions and rituals he and his wife had instituted in their family. The only one that stuck with me was the Christmas morning tradition of making everyone walk past the Christmas tree with all of its presents (still in wrapping paper!) to the dining room for a traditional Christmas breakfast, after which the family went to the Christmas tree for an orchestrated session of the present opening ritual. Hmm. Ok. Though I did not catch the particular vision of eating before presents, my single woman's heart yearned to bring to my future family the stick-to-itiveness of tradition and ritual, whatever that meant. Several months later, I happened to pick up a book entitled, "What is a Family" by Edith Schaeffer. Her book also described the amazing, continuing value that traditions offer children and families. Her story of the family reunions, where matching clothes were provided for all family members, group photos were taken, musical concerts were given, etc., etc., was inspiring. Having been an only child with divorced parents, I saw little hope for family reunions in my generation (they would have been rather limited!), but perhaps, someday, all of this would make sense in my own future family. At least, I was committed to trying to make it happen. Fast forward several years. Bill and I were now married with three children. This was it! The time I had been waiting for. "All right, Bill. What traditions and rituals should we start?" Deer-in-the-headlights look. "Um, Diana, what kind of traditions and rituals do you want to do?" Deer-in-the-headlights look returned. "Um... I don't know. Something ought to come to mind here... Surely we can come up with a few good traditions." I thought about the Christmas breakfast before presents tradition and discarded it quickly as we had already given our children a strong anticipatory dose of "Wow! I can't WAIT to see what is in here!!!" Food, on Christmas morning, was definitely lower on the list. Next, I considered the family reunion scenario. Nope. At ages 6, 4, and 2, they all lived at home and were too young to marry off and provide grandchildren. What to do... what to do... "I know! At birthdays we'll put balloons on the chair of the celebrator that day!!" Problem solved. Tradition and ritual found. Relief... except, of course, that the mere taping of balloons to a chair does not give the amazing sense of family continuity and strength that I had heard described. It was merely an external effort of celebration that had little meaning. Hmmm. Back to the drawing board. When our children were young, Bill and I tried watching Strauss' opera, "Die Fledermaus" and eating artichokes on New Year's Eve, but after two years our local television company quit showing the opera. That was the end of that. Over the next several years I made several attempts at constructing some kind of celebration ritual that I could both do once and remember to do the next time, hoping that somehow they would become the traditions and rituals that would hold us all together, providing my children with that all important "glue" throughout their lives. We tried making tiny gingerbread houses from scratch and hand delivering them to friends (fun, but enormous amounts of work!). We gave every child their own special Christmas ornaments to hang on the Christmas tree (nice, but they outgrew the specialness - especially when I began to relegate to them the chore of decorating the entire tree!). I fixed chili and cornbread on Christmas Eve, for a few years so I would have leftover cornbread for stuffing the next day, but their appetites enlarged to the point that there were never any leftovers! We had "Orphans and Waifs" Christmas Eve buffets at our house, where friends who didn't have extended family could come and share a special evening. That was definitely the best, but it became an overpowering amount of work as I tried to present a perfectly clean home with perfectly prepared food and perfectly dressed children the day before Christmas. Through it all, my children watched me with puzzled faces as I growled my way through all of these traditions. You see, in all my labor (with the accompanying exhaustion), I had forgotten why we were doing this. The point wasn't the work, nor exclamations from friends about how incredible our tradition was, nor magazine-worthy photo shoots! The point was to simply give our children and ourselves a special sense of belonging, an ongoing sense of being the "Waring family," a delight in the distinctives which make our memories. I began to discover that the external traditions and rituals were valuable only as they produced the internal solidity of being family and that, more importantly, they could only take root and continue if sprouted, not from an artificial contrivance, but from the heart of the family. Somehow, the tradition of caroling began to rise to prominence in our music-loving, ham-producing family of singers. It was such a joy to see the delight on friends' faces when they opened the door to our homemade music. There was a comraderie with one another as we raced from house to house to give our special "Waring" gift to people all over town. And, there was the continuity of caroling year after year, since it didn't take much time and required no monetary funding, just a warmed up voice and a stout scarf and hat. . .and gloves. . .and boots. . .and a parka. . . This is South Dakota, after all! I realized how important this tradition had become when my college kids began to ask over the phone, "When will we be going caroling?" and to express, "I can't WAIT to go caroling!" This is the one tradition that stuck. It is the one tradition that brings all of us joy and satisfaction. This one is a keeper. It's the one that most expresses our heart! At last I have found what I had been looking for all of these years. So that is how we came to carol in a bank. . .and a Mexican restaurant. . .and a music store. . .and all over town. May you discover this season the traditions that express what makes your family unique and that bring you all joy! Merry Christmas, Diana Waring P.S. If you didn't get the First Christmas CD in time for this Christmas, you can still get it for the special $10 price. We still have thirty-four left - and it would be great for next Christmas! Click Here to see the new Christmas Study CD