#SOL21: Tradition

It’s been tough to be willing to dig into family traditions, holidays, celebrations and find a healthy balance for all ages and beliefs. That willingness led to a below normal attendance at a family even but even more individual time with some very specific family members.

I’m blessed to be a member of a large family. I’m a “Baby Ruth”. One of 56 grandchildren. I’ve written about “us” before here, here and here.

The calendar and the weather blessed us with many opportunities this year to begin our holiday celebrations. Smaller settings. Enjoying conversations. Catching up on the reality of missed events and holidays. Laughing about zooms.

On Sunday we celebrated Grandma Ruth who, if alive, would have been 125.

We celebrated the elders, those alive and those lost, as we viewed their high school graduation pictures. We know that not all rural kids were fortunate to finish high school during those early years of the twentieth century.

We recognize that it’s hard to keep track of generations, but our “Sunday dinner the week before Christmas” remains a priority tradition for many. We’ve had weather and Covid cancellations but we continue to strive for celebrating our strong ties.

Some of us spend time with out-of-town family so we bring our holiday with us.

We add in coloring, reading, telling stories, sharing memories as we play games, race cars, and decorate ugly sweater cookies. Telling jokes. Playing “I Spy”. Talk and laughter abound!

What traditions will you continue over the winter holidays? What traditions will you let go of this year?

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