Family Traditions

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Family Traditions

What is the meaning of tradition? According to Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:
An inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or social custom); the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or example from one generation to another without written instruction; cultural continuity in social attitudes and institutions.
When I think of traditions, I immediately think of family traditions—things that we do for certain events year after year. One in particular comes to mind. It was a cold and rainy Christmas Day. My mother was the first one up, already preparing the homemade cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate that we always had for breakfast. She woke me up next so I wouldn’t miss the first hour of the Christmas Parade. While watching the parade, I had the dutiful task of taking the decoration pictures. I was to go around the house and take a picture of how everything looked, from the tree all the way down to the cinnamon rolls. This year though was different. For the first time, we had two trees, one in the Family Room and one in the Formal Living Room, and our dinning room was finally complete with twenty-three angels total on the plant shelf. After taking al the pictures, my little sister Christine was to be awaken and then coffee made for our father. After coffee was made, all of the women in his life came into the master bedroom to wake him up with the usual out of tuned sound of Joy to the World followed by a high pitched rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas. This would usually wake him up so we could all rush down to the piano and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus in our Manger by the fireplace. After singing Happy Birthday, we would then all bring out our Bibles and read Jesus’ birth. As a family, we never wanted to lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas, why we are all so blessed to be in thi...