The Bittersweet Passing of Traditions

Christmas Eve has always been a special time for my family.

As far back as my foggy memory reveals, my family has gathered at my parent's home each December 24th, eaten a wonderful meal, lapsed into a colossal (but never ugly) discussion about politics or religion, ignored the grandkids as they washed the dishes, and then retired to the family room to open our presents in a controlled frenzy of flying paper, Styrofoam, batteries, neckties and bath gels.

A lot of wonderful, difficult, glorious, painful years have gone by for our family.

When we started celebrating Christmas Eve, I was the baby of the family, always clambering to get the "old people" to shut-up after dinner, already, and get on to the good stuff! Then came the cool teen years. While my clambering continued, I usually managed to keep it internalized. After all, feined indifference was so mature, right? Then, more years passed and the pestering was handed off to my nephews and nieces, who soon moved on to cool teen years of their own. Then, out of no where, the babies in the room were my own.


Now, our family is scattered like dust across the cities and townships of Ohio, Illinois, Florida and even Montana. Worse yet, I'm a Great Uncle. I have a son that's younger than this largely unknown Great Nephew of mine, but the fact he exists still makes me feel old.

Here's the point of my post (at last!): all of my family's traditions are dying. Like my parent's generation, they're fading away before our eyes, one by precious one. And I can't begin to express my sadness at the loss of them.

Where are the spring work parties to clean out and fill up the swimming pool (and the steaming stacks of well-earned pizzas at the end of those long, hard days)? Where are the annual family reunions at the old wooden shelter houses...and the parties we had at our home afterward, with countless cousins scurrying about like ants on a hill? Where are the Thanksgiving weekends that seemed to last three weeks, stretching out into lazy days of gorging and game playing and couch-lounging movie watching? Where are my nephews and nieces, those precocious, screaming, running, singing, laughing little kids that I loved like they were my own...until I found out what that kind of love really meant?

I'll tell you where they all are...and I'll tell you what happened to our Christmas Eves, too. They're memories now, chemical cocktails in the synapses of my mind. And I miss them terribly. But here's the sweet for the bitter: each of those traditions and memories and relationships and families are being replaced, year by year, with new traditions and memories and relationships and families. My wife and I are now forging together the new traditions my kids will remember. And they're good ones, too, even if they aren't quite my own.

Still...