Tradition - The passing down of elements of a culture from generation to generation. A mode of thoughts or behaviors followed by a people continuously from generation to generation; a custom or usage. A set of customs and usages viewed as a coherent body of precedents influencing the present. A time-honored practice or set of such practices.I do not remember too many Christmas traditions from my childhood. While I may not remember how our family decorated the Christmas tree, I do remember that when my boys were young, our Christmas tree was a modgepodge of decorations. There were ornaments the boys made at school, cute ornaments that their grandparents got for them, and even ornaments that we, their parents, had collected for them over the years.
One of our family Christmas traditions was to go out the first weekend in December to a Christmas tree farm, to spend what seemed like hours searching for the "perfect" tree, and then to cut the tree down ourselves. When we got home, we would listen to Christmas music as Joe would put the tree in the stand, I would sort and divide the ornaments into piles in front of the person to whom they belonged, and then we each would put our most precious ornaments on the tree.
When the boys were small, they loved these family traditions but as they got older, they did not embrace them as much as they once did. As they got older, we went from cutting our tree down to buying one already cut. They would appease me by helping me decorate the tree, but as soon as the tree was done they would rush off to other things, things more fun. Then the year came that neither Jimmy nor Joshua lived at home any more and the tree decorating fell entirely on me. Usually, one of them would get the tree for me and put the lights on it, but neither of them would help me decorate it.When Jim and Josh were young and there was no rhyme or reason to the tree, I would often wonder what a "themed" tree would look like, a tree where all the bulbs, lights, and decorations matched. So, this year for one of my 50 things I decided to have a "themed" tree. Jimmy got my tree for me, put it up, and strung the lights, but that is where the tradition as I knew it ended. My lights were the same lights that I have used for years, green and red poinsettias, but the decorations were new. I went with a blue and silver color theme. There are multiple blue and silver ornaments, some are plain and some a little more detailed, and while the tree is beautiful, it is not the tree I thought it would be. Yes, the colors all match and the ornaments are not chipped, nicked, or broken, but there is no story to them either. The modgepodge tree, while not themed, evokes memories, tells a story, reminds us of our traditions.
Isn't it funny, how sometimes you get what you think you want only to find out that you had what you really wanted all along?
ReplyDelete(I think it looks beautiful, my frined but I do much prefer the "everything but the kitchen sink" tree!)
Yes, be careful what you wish for because you might just get it :) This is probably going to be my one and only attempt at a "themed" tree.
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