I recently had occasion to spend two weeks in Sweden, and this being the Christmas season I was exposed to many of their Christmas traditions, quite different from the ones I’m used to, but a lot of fun. While examining their Christmas traditions (glogg, christmas table, etc.) I stopped to think about what actually makes something a tradition, and I think I’ve come up with a pretty basic framework: The tradition must be started AND It must be either expensive OR difficult to accomplish OR it must not be all that great to begin with. I’ll examine those one at a time.
The Tradition must be started
Simple eh? In order for something to become a tradition it must get started, perhaps something as formal as a first harvest on a “new” continent, the birth of a savior, or something that began on a whim or coincidence that just worked out well such as wearing those Christmas popper hat’s at the table, or me desperately trying to remember to make a Christmas stocking for my mother.
Expensive or Difficult or not all that great
Aye, here’s the rub. This is what truly separates traditions from things that become pervasive consistent elements of every day life, the challenge involved. Think about it for a moment, if there was a tradition that was cheap, easy to do and really good, it wouldn’t be a tradition anymore, it would be something that you did with great regularity. We eat turkey’s at Christmas and Thanksgiving because they’re great tasting and share well with the whole family. We only eat them at Christmas and Thanksgiving because they take hours to cook, are compared to most elements of modern cuisine are difficult to prepare. Modern factory farming techniques could easily provide us with a turkey for our oven every day of the year if the market demanded it, but it wont because we’re too busy. Our other family tradition of forcing all to wear those paper hats during dinner works out well for christmas because while mildly amusing, isn’t exactly thrilling, it remains a tradition because it’s a neat thing to do once a year, and because while cheap it’s not quite worthwhile to do it every night.
Leaving me with two questions, what are your thoughts on what makes an event or practice into a tradition, and what are your traditions this holiday season?
