Traditions

Christmas / New Year always makes people a bit reflective, I think it’s the sense of tradition it inspires. There are things you do at Christmas that you do because you’ve done them ever since you were a child. Family traditions, that no one can remember why they started, but they seem to have always been a part of your family DNA. 

    Ornaments that get put up year in year out and are now so old that they’re treated like the finest most delicate bits of expensive china. In our house, it’s the fairy at the top of the tree, bought for Mum and Dad by my Grandpa when they first got married. Granted she looks a bit like a drag queen now, but she sits at the top of our tree every year and is ceremonially kissed for luck.

And Red Whisker, I've no idea, where he originally came from, but he was named after a character in a story my Dad made up for Lucy and I when we were little. He used to tell the Nogglers what the wicked Queen was up to. (I guess you had to be there)

  This year was the first Christmas we’d spent at home since my Mum died. My Mum always made Christmas really special and despite her Christmas Eve strop, where she was anything BUT festive, it was always really magical.

   Lucy and I made a pact never to arrive on Christmas Eve pre Mum having a G&T. Dad would send the secret signal that the aforementioned G&T had been poured and Mum was safely sat on the sofa with “Carols from Kings” on the TV merrily crying at the choir boys and partaking in a chocolate Orange (Never mind Terry, at Christmas, that Chocolate Orange had Pamela’s name all over it!)

We could then arrive, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t turn into a wailing banshee at the sight of presents and suitcases we'd arrived with, that would be bound to mess up the immaculate display of neatly placed presents under the tree.

  For some reason we always had a Chinese on Christmas Eve and this year, we’d said we wouldn’t do that as we wanted to make things different to how they would have been when Mum was alive. However by the time Christmas Eve arrived, we’d all been hit by the flu and felt generally crappy and the logical thing was to stay in, in our matching Elf PJ’s (don’t judge, I don’t care how old you are, you’re never too old for matching comedy PJ’s!) and eat our bodyweight in Chinese food!

  That pretty much set the standard for our Christmas, we ate, we drank, we laughed, we embraced the old traditions, we created new ones…. Christmas bedding was inspired Dad. And we just had a really good time!

  I noticed that there were other family traditions that I subconsciously did everyday or when I was feeling a bit down. I’ve had the really bad flu over the last few days and knowing there’s not a lot the doctor could do for me, I resorted to the things my Mum used to give me when I was ill when I was little. As far as I know, they have no legally recognized healing qualities, but they hit the spot and made me feel better, if only spiritually!

That’s when I found this quote….

It doesn’t matter why your family has created the traditions it has, or if you can even remember the reasons why, what matters is that no matter where you are or one of you is missing, there’ll always be a bind that no one else will understand or laugh at unless they’re part of your family / team / friend group and that’s why traditions are important, they make us feel safe!