Traditions Old and New

What are traditions? While there’s a definition that sums up the basic premise of them, traditions themselves are innately personal.

They’re personal to a country, or a people, or an organization, or a family, or a person…

Some might be “set in stone” from years or even centuries ago. Others might develop in the face of change or for the sake of change, and might become permanent fixtures or be purely temporary.

This year has challenged some old traditions, that’s for sure. Gone were big weddings and their receptions; class and family reunions; conferences; big holiday gatherings…

Well, they were gone from the in-person perspective anyway.

For some people, those traditions won’t return because they discovered through their need to pivot that they prefer the new way over the old.

Take conferences, for example. Conducting some conferences online made a lot more sense and gave a whole lot more people access to them, and so they’ll maintain that format moving forward. For others, while they may resume their in-person model, they’ll add online tickets as an option in lieu of in-person attendance moving forward.

That’s pretty great, right?

As for the family traditions… I’m not sure it could be said that a Zoom Christmas party is better than an in-person Christmas party. The vibe just isn’t the same - for me, at least. And yet it’s better than no Christmas party at all.

However, I hope to see us resuming our in-person family celebrations next year - at least for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Assumption-free zone

I truly encourage you, dear one, to consider your own traditions through your current lens.

It would be easy to slip back into them as our global community enters into a COVID-19-free state through 2021. It would be easy to assume that’s how it’s meant to be, because that’s how it was before the pandemic.

Rather than assuming, feel into those old traditions and assess with compassionate curiosity, as well as your intuition, whether or not they stand up in the now and moving forward.

And rather than assuming, feel into what could be new traditions and assess with curiosity, as well as your intuition, whether or not they’re meant to stick around.

Through both assessments, allow yourself to let go of any supposed-to-be-ing and should-ing. As we’ve all changed in various ways through this year, it stands to reason that some of our traditions might need to change now, too.

Blessed be.