Tradition

Tradition is such a funny word to me. At once it describes something that has not changed but is repeated in spite of change in situation, and therefore cannot truly exist. We enjoy our family traditions that have been passed down generation to generation. And yet each year we tweak them, just slightly. Because in reality we cannot replicate the past, no matter how carefully we study it. Maybe that's the beauty of tradition. We create our own traditions every year within the greater framework of what those before us have done.

My family to has old traditions, and ones that only started this year. We have traditions that lasted a few years and may eventually resume. For a few years the weeks before Christmas were spent on movie marathons. One year was John Cusack movies (I definitely insisted Anastasia be on the list). Another year was everything Hitchcock. It seemed a little anti-holiday to be watching Psycho and The Birds as everyone around us was fawning over classics like White Christmas and Santa Clause. But it was something that gave us an excuse to spend evenings together and something to analyze and talk about. Unfortunately, the following years didn't allow us to spend multiple evenings like this.

Now our tradition is to turn on 24 hours of A Christmas Story. The entire time it's on I don't think we watch it all the way through, but we laugh at our favorite parts even though we probably see those four minutes three times. And there are more new traditions. I'm learning to balance splitting the holidays between two families - and still finding time to relax and enjoy the break!

And it's the perfect time to start even more new traditions with the new year.  Bringing in 2014 with friends, sharing a midnight kiss. But one tradition that will remain is watching the fireworks at the Space Needle and spending the moment with the important people in my life.