You don’t monkey with tradition
Posted
July 3, 2008 at
5:11 pm by
Allison J
So tomorrow is the 4th of July — the kick-off of all summer celebrations.
I’ve always been a big fan of the 4th. The fire works and picnics. Red, white and blue as far as the eye can see. Everything seems to shut down in favor of fun and festivities.
However, I’m a bit down this year. My family is big on tradition — Christmas Eve is always as Great Grandma’s (although she is now deceased) with about 85 of our nearest and dearest. Even though our winters can be deadly, we always make the hour-long journey. Christmas Day is at Grandpa’s where the family has been celebrating the same way for the past 30 years. My husband and our friends have a long-standing Christmas dinner together. Each October we all trek to a state park for a long weekend. Good Friday means a 6am wake-up call as DH and I prepare to head out to the Polish market. The last weekend in July is spent at the Level Regatta, regardless of the rising ticket cost and presence of unwanted teens. We have lots of traditions — and I am a stickler about them. To quote a favorite movie of mine, “You don’t monkey with tradition.” But this year everything is screwy.
TRADITIONALLY we spend Independence Day doing a myriad of activities. We start off the morning on the sailboat. My father gets frustrated if we don’t tighten the jib fast enough. My mother gets nervous when the boat tips and becomes frustrated with the whole situation. And someone always loses something overboard. Next we head back to my parent’s for an all-day picnic. My dog stands on the pool deck while my husband soaks him. Said dog inevitably goes on to the patio and shakes his wet fur all over the relatives, who shoot daggers my way. We all eat too much and then complain about the raging sunburns we’ve all acquired.
Then the pieces de resistance — fire works. We load up wagons and coolers and make our way to a local park. We fight for a spot to lay down our numerous blankets and prepare for the light show. The park becomes mobbed, babies are crying, dogs are barking, and someone always has to use the bathroom. We’re tired, burned and a bit cranky. Then we have to wait 45 minutes for the show to actually begin. When all is said and done we make the slow walk home among fellow neighbors.
I’m bumming because this year our sailboat is on its way to Toronto, my parents have to attend a graduation party tomorrow, and my very pregnant sister isn’t up to much walking. My husband and I are scrambling to find some festivities to occupy our 4th. I know we’ll pull something together, but the absence of long-standing traditions is breaking my spirit.
I just like the comfort that comes with family traditions, or the new ones my husband and I have created with friends. I want my children to grow up with those traditions. I want them to have the same warm memories that I cherish. Is your family big on tradition?
Tags: family-celebrations, family-traditions, holidays |
6 Responses to “You don’t monkey with tradition”
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1. Rita said:
July 3, 2008 @ 8:30 pm
Some. But, coming from interesting backgrounds, my husband and I have forged our own traditions since we’ve been together, rather than adhering to our separate family traditions. We’ve had to give-and-take on some of them–like in my family, we always opened our christmas presents to each other on christmas eve, then santa came and we opened the santa presents christmas morning. His family opened them all on christmas morning. So, we’ve had to learn to compromise with that.
I like the ones that we’ve made up together the best. We make it work if we’re visiting relatives (or traveling–I’ve been in Mexico over Christmas twice and Italy on the 4th of July once, and we had Thanksgiving dinner at a diner somewhere in Pennsylvania the time we were moving from Austin to Boston in ‘00).
We never really had any big 4th of july traditions though, other than the fireworks after dark.
2. Kymberly Foster Seabolt said:
July 4, 2008 @ 7:47 am
Amen sister!
The whole point of “Tradition” is that sense of comfort of doing what we have done before and what, God willing, we will do again.
Even the things that are maddening, time-consuming, and, perhaps, “an utter waste of time” have their own charm when “tradition” is tacked on to the mix.
3. Tracy said:
July 4, 2008 @ 9:05 am
Pretty much. My husband’s side of the family have their own traditions, and now we are trying to make some of our own and THAT’S what I find annoying. Fitting everyone in, this Christmas we ended up running ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE and really I just wanted to sit at my moms in front of a fire eating chocolate Santa’s.
4. Rita said:
July 4, 2008 @ 11:54 am
[quote comment="176222"] Fitting everyone in, this Christmas we ended up running ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE and really I just wanted to sit at my moms in front of a fire eating chocolate Santa’s.[/quote]
I stopped that after the second Christmas as a mother. Everyone was doing the big tug-o-war with us over the holidays and we were running everywhere and not enjoying anything. So, we made up a schedule and stuck with it in Clevleand. Then we moved to Texas and basically said, fuck y’all, you want to see us for holidays, you’ve got to come HERE. And, they did. I found that I really enjoy hosting holidays, too. So, Thanksgivings are negotiable, but Christmas is always at our house now.
5. Allison G. said:
July 7, 2008 @ 11:45 am
As kids, the only tradition we had for the 4th of July was for my dad would take us to Chinatown in NYC a few days early to buy cheap fireworks (I saw a modern mafia man beat up a Chinese woman in the street for selling “on our block”, kick her stuff into the street, and people steal it all away).
Then we’d have our godparents visit us for BBQ and swimming on the 4th and the men would light off the stuff while the women and kids watched from the lawn. And each kid got a box of sparklers and champaigne poppers for ourselves. Then the next day my dad would make us kids sweep the street and clean up all fireworks trash (I got caught sweeping it into the storm drain one year and got whipped for it).
One year I thought I’d be slick and stay inside watching TV, and didn’t light any fireworks at all thinking I could beat the next-day cleanup, and he got mad and made me do it all alone! (I deserved that, I guess)
And for Thanksgiving, my grandma would ride the Greyhound from PA to NYC and my dad would pick her up so she could have the big dinner with us. She’d usually stay for a few days.
Other than that, no real traditions. But being married, I am tired of his family and mine playing tug-of-war with us and laying guilt-trips if we don’t see them. We’re staying home this year.
6. Kymberly said:
July 7, 2008 @ 11:54 am
Honestly, I think “where we would spend the holidays” is as important to discuss during the dating/engagement phase as politics, religion, and how many children you think it would be ideal to have.