TRADITIONS

How many times do you have to do something before it becomes an official tradition?  I LOVE TRADITIONS!  If you don't love traditions, seriously, something is wrong (you've probably been doing them wrong, or not at all)!  Most traditions seem to happen around the holidays.  Everybody loves Christmas and many people have different traditions around that time.  On Christmas Eve my family has two main traditions.  With my parents, we take all of our old Christmas cards that have been sent to us and cut out the pictures, gluing them to large sheets of construction paper for placemats to eat our traditional quiche (made by my dad) and the next day's Christmas feast with ham, scalloped potatoes, and strawberry pretzel salad. After we finish Christmas Eve dinner with my parents, we go spend a few hours with my husband's side of the family.  Second dinner at Great Grandma's house with lots of cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.  I love that too!  I also love second dinner.  Good food=good tradition :)  We play a few games, open presents, chat. There are a pretty good number of us packed into a little farm house nestled in the snow.  Christmas is wonderful.  What a warm little picture in my mind, but it's July right now.  So:

The Fourth of July is just as exciting to me as Christmas!  A lot of people think I'm weird, because a lot of people don't do anything big for the fourth.  That is okay, but I like my Fourth of July big!  Growing up in Vancouver, WA the firework show used to be "The biggest West of the Mississippi!"  But funding has gone down and the firework show has dwindled a little, but it's still worth going!!!  I am going to speak in past tense as I talk about this because my family now all lives in the Idaho/Utah area.  Everybody came from all around the Portland, OR/Vancouver metropolitan area to watch.  We would put out blankets in the Fort Vancouver Field on Officer's Row.  There would be thousands and thousands of people.  We always went early in the afternoon to stake out a spot.  My parents were not die hards (some would think we were).  We never got shade because they were not willing to go at 9 am.  We had friends who did.  The atmosphere was full of the grand stand live music bands, craft booths, greasy, yummy fair food (which we never got-too expensive.  We brought in a picnic), sky divers with brightly colored parachutes, airplanes writing messages in the air (note: I think that would be so romantic.  My husband should do that for me someday), card games, brownies, friends and family.  You can not get close parking.  We just always planned on lugging a bunch of stuff in at least a mile and packing it all out (chairs, blankets, coolers, umbrellas, coats for night time, etc.).

SIDE NOTE FOR MEMORY LANE: One year my parents bought this really long piece of pvc pipe and spray painted it red, white, and blue.  We stuck it in the ground so our friends and family could find us as they came later in the evening.  I have such a vivid memory of when the firework show was over.  The mass of people were all moving in one direction. We children are waiting for our parents to pack everything up before we begin our journey out.   It's like standing still in a river with a current.  A tall guy walks by and just grasps the pole and takes it with him.  It's gone.  I quickly bring it to my dad's attention.  My brothers and I are thinking, "Go get it back, Dad!"  My dad's words to us are, "Now you see how children can be kidnapped," and he goes back to packing.  Oh. Yep. I guess that's true.  Now I'm a little on edge. Never thought of that before.  But I worry that it hurt my mom's feelings that the pole is gone till she says, "Oh well. I'm kind of glad we don't have to worry about packing that thing out."  Ok.  Good. I'm at piece with the pole again, but still kind of nervous.  I feel like gripping my parents' coat tails so no one can take me or my brothers.

BACK TO THE PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE: So...traditions, I like them...yes.  Now we all live in the Idaho area.  We hear Idaho Falls has a similar event.  So we must try it out and see if we can continue on our tradition.  I look forward to Monday!

"Only two traditions??" you say.  Well, I started a new one at Easter.  We eat hummus on pita bread with tabouli and falafuls on Easter Eve.  It's probably not exactly what they ate in bible days, who knows.  But we like it and it feels middle eastern to us, so it works.  I even created a middle eastern station on Pandora to listen to while we ate.

Birthdays we eat out and get together with the family...

...................I think we need more traditions.  I will keep working on that.  For me, a tradition has to be meaningful, memorable, and not an over the top amount of work.  But once it's a tradition, you HAVE  to do it!  You can not slack off.  That's not fun!

Oh!  I know another one!  Every 24th of July we gather with Jaron's family to attend the St. Anthony Pioneer day's parade.  The floats are amazing!!! Especially for a tiny town like St. Anthony, ID.  We usually barbecue after that.  I really look forward to that event also. So we do have more than two!  I KNEW IT!

Traditions are a kind of glue that can hold a family together and bring us happiness and purpose through our Earthy Journey.  We will carry memories with us forever.  Making them happen can take sacrifice, time, and effort, but they are AWLAYS worth it!

Many months later...I remembered another tradition I have that I want to record.  In place of gifts, I take my nieces and nephews for a treat for their birthday.  They are all young, but I hope someday they will know their Aunt Brooke loved and cared about them.  I hope my small influence will be for good.  This idea came to me when my first niece Morgin was born.  Her birth was the closest I had ever been to motherhood.  Her birthday is just a few days after Christmas.  When she turned 3 I was boggled about what to get her.  So I did this instead.  Her 4th birthday I gave her a gift (actually easier once I got my own kids!) but for her 5th birthday when I asked her what she wanted, she told me she wanted to go out together for a treat again.  It's difficult to make the time for it.  And with time, fuel, the cost of the treat for the birthday child, myself and now my children, it's more than I would probably spend on a gift, but I just think you can't put a price on taking time for precious loved ones.