Christmas Tradition

Posted by Alan Sanders on Dec 14, 2010 in Telegram Past News

Christmas is the time of year for presents, celebration and tradition.  Tradition often dictates how this holiday is celebrated and they remain the same for the years to come.  Whether it’s going to church on Christmas eve, putting up the Christmas tree Thanksgiving weekend or putting up your Christmas lights a certain way, many people offer traditions that they follow every year.

Even the media follows Christmas tradition in a sense.  Every year, the same Christmas specials are shown on TV and the same Christmas music floods radio stations.  Many things that you see or experience mirrors the holidays from previous years and this trend will likely continue as families pass down their traditions to their children.  The media knows that people enjoy watching Christmas classics around the holidays, so instead of breaking this tradition, they embrace it.

Putting up a Christmas tree is also a typical tradition in most families.  Every year Christmas tree farms open for the holidays to sell the trees that they have been preparing all year.  Everywhere from permanent farms to temporary locations in parking lots, trees are sold to the public for the holiday season when it will be decorated and perform the job of being a centerpiece of the Christmas holiday.

Often, Christmas is celebrated with one’s family and friends as an opportunity to be thankful for everything that they have.  Christmas can be a time for religion in the traditional sense of the holiday or it can be a more modern translation of this celebration.  However you celebrate this popular holiday, you can probably find some kind of tradition that you have.  This tradition can be passed down from generation to generation or it may be a new tradition.  So is it a bad thing to remove old traditions to begin celebrating with new ones?

Old traditions offer stability and a level of being aware of what is going to happen.  Some people may enjoy traditions for this reason.  Maybe a family doesn’t want any surprises or wants things to go the same way every year.  They may know what they like and want to experience it the same way every year.  There is no fault with this form of celebration.

Creating new tradition each year can make the holidays fun with spontaneous aspects that you wouldn’t get with traditions that you perform year after year.  This kind of celebration can be exciting with new traditions being made every year.  This kind of celebration is perfectly acceptable as well.

There is no right or wrong way to celebrate the holidays.  Each family has their own way of acknowledging Christmas and they have the freedom to so.  Whether they follow traditions that have been passed down in their family for generations or if they make it up as they go along, the Christmas holiday is still celebrated.  Christmas is a time that brings family and friends together in a way that other holidays might not be able to.  Christmas is a chance to have relationships grow through the way that this holiday brings people together.  However you celebrate it, though, is up to you.