Covenant Weekly
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On Sunday morning I was asked if our Christmas Eve service was going to be a candlelight service. I joked in reply that I’m not sure we’d get away with not lighting candles while singing Silent Night at the end of our time together! It is a Christmas tradition that many would really miss if we didn’t do it. Christmas is a time that is filled with traditions and we’re going to talk about that today.
When I was young, one of the Christmas traditions we had involved my mom’s parents and my uncle, aunt, and cousins on that side of my family. My mom is an amazing piano player and my grandfather was a flautist. When I was young, my cousin, who is a few years older than me was already playing the violin at a fairly high level, too. When we gathered for Christmas, one of our traditions was gathering, after the meal and gifts were done, to play and sing Christmas carols - piano, flute, and violin leading the way. It was a great way to be together as a family around something that we all loved. That was a worthwhile tradition for as long as we could maintain it.
Other traditions may come from a less obvious place but are still something we fight to hold onto. I knew a family where one of the traditions was waiting to see what crazy and amazing lights he would design to go on the house each Christmas. I think my favourite year was when he set up their home to be like a doghouse with Snoopy lying on his back on the roof.
I talked with someone else recently who talked about how men and women would eat in shifts. The women would work to prepare the food and serve the men at the main table and the kids at the kids' table. Once they were all done eating, the women would take their place at the main table and take their time to enjoy their meal. The reason for this tradition was simple…there wasn’t enough room in the house and around the table for everyone to eat at the same time.
But what happens when traditions, set up for a specific reason in a specific context, just hang on for the sake of tradition?
I think of the story, likely apocryphal, about the young mom who, whenever she put the Christmas ham in her pan, cut off the end. Her young child asked her one year, “Mommy? Why do you cut the end of the ham off?” The young mom answered, “I’m not really sure. That’s just how it’s supposed to be done. My mom did it that way so I do it, too.” The answer didn’t sit well with the child so the next day when gathering with her own mom, she asked her mom…”Why do we cut the end of the ham off when we cook it?” Her mom, who had now been cutting the end off the ham for 44 years, said, “I’m not really sure. That’s just how it’s supposed to be done. My mom did it that way so I do it, too.” Later that day, the two women went to visit their matriarch who was in a nursing home. In the course of the conversation, they remembered the question about the ham and asked her. “When we prepare the ham, we always cut the end off because that is how you always did it. Why do we cut the end of the ham off?” The older lady laughed at the question and said, “Well, I’m not really sure why you cut the end of the ham off! I always cut it off because if I didn’t, the ham couldn’t fit in my pan!”
Tradition can be good and beautiful, but like these women, sometimes we hold on to tradition just because we’ve watched someone else do it that way. And in just copying others, we can actually miss out on something.
As you move through this season, I hope you can enjoy the traditions that you’ve had and that they can help provide grounding in a chaotic world. But I also hope and pray that you have the freedom to consider why some traditions are being followed. And if it’s better for you and your family, given your circumstances, to change traditions…that’s okay, too!
Even our oldest traditions started with someone making them up or adopting them for the first time. Perhaps something you start this year could be the thing that is significant and special for you, your friends, and your family for years to come. Or maybe it will be special for just this year, and that can be okay, too.
As you continue through this advent season towards Christmas, I pray that the traditions you hold on to will bless you and encourage you. And I pray that you’ll be open to some new things that might be exactly what you need to remind you and encourage you in the love of Jesus - Emmanuel - God with Us - this year.