Someone suggests changing the Christmas dinner, skipping the annual film or going
somewhere different for a family occasion. It’s a reasonable, harmless suggestion. So why
does it feel almost personally offensive?
You might not even have particularly enjoyed the tradition before someone suggested getting
rid of it. Suddenly, you’re defending a film you’ve watched twenty times or insisting on
decorations that are practically falling apart. “We always do it this way” feels like a perfectly
valid explanation. But why can changing one small ritual feel like losing something much
bigger?
It’s because childhood traditions connect us to a version of life we can’t otherwise return to.
The same birthday breakfast, the same decorations, the same argument over what to watch.
Repeating these things gives us a way to revisit an earlier version of ourselves, surrounded by
people whose presence we might once have taken for granted.
As children, we rarely stop to consider how these occasions happen. Someone buys the food,
finds the decorations, and makes sure everyone knows when to arrive. We simply turn up and
experience it. It’s only when we’re older, and perhaps responsible for some of it ourselves,
that we notice the effort behind what seemed to happen naturally.
There is something comforting about knowing what comes next. When so much of growing
up involves change, a familiar ritual offers something dependable. You might have moved
away, started a new job or have no idea what you’re doing with your life, but at least you
know which film everyone will be watching on Christmas Eve.
Traditions also become part of a family’s identity. “This is what we do” can carry a surprising
amount of meaning. Another family might find your particular ritual boring or bizarre, but
that hardly matters. Its significance comes from the memories attached to it, the jokes that
accompany it and the people who insist it happens every year.
Still, I wonder whether we’re sometimes preserving the tradition or chasing the original
feeling.
We can put up the same decorations and cook the same meal, but we can’t guarantee we’ll
feel the way we did at ten. Someone might be missing from the table. A sibling might be
spending the day elsewhere. The person who used to organise everything might now need
someone else to take over.
When that happens, even a minor change can draw attention to everything else that has
changed. It might feel easier to get upset about a different dinner than to admit we miss how
things used to be.
And sometimes, traditions stop fitting. They become too expensive, too difficult to organise
or dependent on one person doing all the work. New partners bring their own customs.
People develop different beliefs or simply want a say in how they spend their time.
That can be difficult to accept when keeping everything the same feels like a way of keeping
everyone close. But a tradition that once made people feel included can become
uncomfortable if there’s no room for anyone’s circumstances to change.
Perhaps it helps to ask what we’re attached to. Is it the particular meal, or having everyone
around the table? Is it watching the film, or spending an evening together without anyone
rushing off? Sometimes the details are precious in their own right. Other times, we might be
able to change more than we think while keeping what we love.
I don’t think we need to outgrow childhood traditions to prove we’ve grown up. There’s
pleasure in doing something familiar simply because we’ve always loved it. But the traditions
we remember so fondly had to begin somewhere. Someone chose a film, made a breakfast or suggested doing something again the following year. We’re allowed to make those choices
too.
One day, something we’ve only just started doing might be the thing someone else insists
we’ve always done.