Holiday Traditions -- Intentional, Habitual?

by Pari

Last Saturday eve I grated the potatoes and onions, added the egg, flour, salt and pepper, and plopped this year’s latkes in the waiting hot sunflower oil. The deep sizzle growl of frying food, the gloriously seasonal smell, brought a fundamental comfort and sense that all was right with the world. I started celebrating Hanukkah with my kids when they were tiny. I wanted them to have the language of latkes and lighting candles. I wanted that closeness to be part of their molecules.  Now my kids are in their teens and this tradition is a warm part of our family’s expression of enduring love.

Traditions are the scaffolding of identity, the bones of how we experience -- and often judge -- the world around us. Some, such as my latkes on the first night of Hanukkah, are deliberate. Others come into being by slovenly default, habits no longer imbued with meaning other than the necessity of doing them.

Always at this time of year (is this a tradition?), I reflect on the holiday-actions I do out of choice and those I feel compelled to perform merely because they’re what I’ve always done -- or what I think is expected of me . . .

Gift giving
Card sending
Money donating
Champagne drinking
Party going
Overeating  . . .

Habits get taken for granted.

Intentional traditions have the potential to live in hearts for as long as memory allows. Some of the ones I share with my children are:

* Making the latkes
* Lighting the candles and singing the prayers together
* Buying the most oddly indulgent prepared foods for a blowout on New Year’s Eve
* Putting luminarias out on New Year’s Eve to welcome the New Year
(luminarias or farolitos are put out in NM on Christmas Eve to welcome the baby Jesus)
* Writing down our wishes for the New Year and burning them, in a pot outside, on New Year's Eve

I also have a few nascent possibilities that may become personal traditions. Last year, I felt it important to be deliberate on my first Christmas alone in 18 years. I knew I’d miss my kids tremendously. I also knew I’d be spending most Christmases alone from there on out. So I watched foreign movies all day -- mostly Bollywood -- and topped the night off with Whale Rider. Yes, that might become a tradition; I’ll know this year, if it feels like the right thing to do.

I’m also considering other options . . .

How about you?

What are your happy intentional traditions?
Which defaults might you want to shed?
Are you thinking of any new actions that might transform into welcome traditions in the coming years?

Freedom

by Pari

One the first day of Hanukkah, my true love gave to me . . .

Yep. It’s that time of year when latkes sizzle and candle flames flicker.

And let's not forget the old saw about the miracle of a small amount of oil lasting for eight nights.

But for me the real miracle is that a small band of determined and incredibly outnumbered people fought for the freedom to worship, to believe in their own way, and actually won.

I don’t know about you, but I think about freedom a lot:

Physical freedom from slavery, hunger and disease
Political freedom to express opinions, to vote
Creative freedom to think differently, to break the chains of our self-imposed limitations

Yet all of us are prisoners. We embrace “conventional wisdom” without thinking about it. We often succumb – willingly – to a negative status quo.

When I stop to think about my writing and career, I’m agog at all the truisms I’ve bought into without question:

No one respects creativity anymore
Writers must market to be successful
Piracy is inevitable
More editing = better work
No one reads anymore 

The list goes on and on . . .

I’m not saying that the above – and the many more givens I accept – don’t hold grains of truth. I’m just sayin’ that maybe I’ve spent more time responding to them rather than thinking about how much they’re true in the first place.

So . . . this Hanukkah, my first present to all of you is in the form of a wish:

May you all experience the miracle of questioning, of looking anew at your long-held beliefs. And may you free yourselves from those that are holding you back in your personal and professional life.

The videos below are my second present to you. All of them blast away at certain kinds of conventions. I hope you enjoy them

1. Dar Williams sings "The Christians and the Pagans"
I love this song for the message of putting aside differences -- if only for an evening -- and learning to find "common ground."  (Sorry to include a link rather than embedding, but this is the best quality link to really hear the words.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Xdk4PujOE

2. Danny Macaskill rides his bicycle in ways that'll blow your mind.

3.  Paddy Jones dances at Spain's big talent show.
Ms. Jones is a 75-year old woman who can dance a mean salsa. Even though the quality of the video isn't as good as I'd wish, it's message comes through.

Questions for discussion:

What are some of the positive or injurious conventions you see out there in the reading and writing world?

Have you rejected a conventional wisdom lately? If so, what was it?