One morning, before we left on a trip, my father asked my mother, sister and me to pause in the hallway and sit atop our suitcases. He then instructed us to observe a moment of silence and reflect on the journey ahead, a Russian tradition he’d learned about in his studies. We were driving to California from Nevada, as we did during many summers of my childhood, but that was the only time we ever practiced this tradition.
I don’t know why I remember this single minute from long ago when so many other minutes are lost to memory. We aren’t Russian – my father taught Russian history, but other than that I have no real link to Russia – and we did numerous things together as a family that I can’t recall at all. So why is that image of us sitting on our luggage in the entryway so clear in my mind?
Perhaps I remember it because it was out of the ordinary. Also, as a mostly non-religious family, we didn’t practice many traditions, so that one odd moment rises to the surface.
I love the idea of traditions and have always wanted to incorporate more of them into my own family. When we lived in Wisconsin, my husband and I used to toast with a glass of whiskey during the first snowfall of the year (We did it twice). I suggested we take a photograph of the four of us in the same position once every year (We’ve never done it). I make everyone take a hike with me on my birthday (That’s been accomplished a few times).
It’s difficult to create a new tradition. Why did we never sit on our suitcases again? We probably just forgot. Or we were rushing out the door, arguing about who left what behind, and didn’t care to slow down enough to sit still and reflect on the journey ahead.
Drinking whiskey with the first snowfall sounds simple enough, but you need to have the whiskey handy, and the first snowfall is unpredictable, and sometimes you just don’t feel like drinking whiskey.
You get the idea.
I’ve been trying to decide if we have any real traditions in my family now. Some that were begun have already cycled through and left our lives, and some have just gotten started.
Here are the things we do: We sit in our same spots for dinner each night. Growing up, we had our chosen seats at the dinner table too, but I think that falls more under the category of habit than tradition. However, if someone sits in a different spot, it feels weird.
We try and camp on an island each summer with my sister’s family. We’ve pitched tents twice on islands on Lake George, NY and once on Catalina Island. Is three times enough to call it a tradition?
My mother made a delicious egg, sausage, cheese and bread casserole every Christmas Eve that we ate on Christmas morning, and my sister or I now make it every year.
My mother, sister and I meet to spend a weekend together somewhere each year, just the three of us.
I’m not very traditional person, which is likely why we have so few ingrained practices in our family, but I like the idea of creating your own customs, or continuing ones practiced by your family, as long as everyone enjoys them.
Tradition is often used in the same sentence as oppression. It can imply stagnation or an unwillingness to innovate or change. But when we create our own traditions, they can construct a sacred family mythology, and when our children grow up they can tell the story of our family to their friends, partners and children. “My family did this every year,” they will say, and it will provide a window into their past, into our family, which is its own peculiar universe, just as all families are.
Contact the writer: hskyler@ocregister.com
