What exactly defines a tradition, and can a tradition be updated or altered?
This comes up for several reasons, the least of which is the time of year. We are heading full steam into the holiday season, a time that is all about traditions, rituals and cultural mores.
Way back in the day, even as recently as three or four decades ago, people moved around less, stayed married longer and generally did things as their parents and grandparents did them.
Families attended the Christmas pageants at their school or church just as they did the year before and the year before that. They loaded up the family station wagon on Thanksgiving or Christmas morning and headed to Grandma’s house and joined the rest of the extended family for a traditional meal and a day of ritualistic celebration.
Now, the extended family tree can more resemble a wisteria bush than an oak. This isn’t a call for going back to the good ol’ days but an acknowledgment that things change and people adapt.