Traditions and How They Shape Your Family

This is a guest post contributed by Lara Chomout. You can learn more about Lara in her bio at the bottom of her post.

The fall and winter seasons are times that many hold dear - for many they mark the beginning of holiday traditions. The days are filled with cozy evenings, romping in the pumpkin patches, watching the first snow fall, spending time around tables laughing with friends and family - frequent pauses from “everyday life” we don’t seem to take as often in the seasons that follow. We are doing what we were made to do - spending time together, loving each other, serving each other well.

I grew up in a household where we did not get to see extended family around the holidays as often as we would have liked. Each year brought something new - from different circumstances, to living too far, etc. However, this did not hinder our family from starting traditions my family still carries out today.

Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, we would eagerly anticipate the feast that would be set before us. We would help my mom prepare, we would set the table, trying so hard not to sample all the foods being prepared as we eagerly anticipated the knocks that would soon thump upon our door.

My family has always had a heart for the lonely during the holidays - as many times older couples took them in when they had nowhere to go during the holidays. My family very much carries the question of, “Who can we invite to our feast?” instead of the question, “How should we celebrate our feast?” 

Our feast was never fancy - we didn’t use fine china or fancy tablecloths--  but our table always had different people sitting in the chairs every year. Perhaps one seat held a widower, another a young army man or a new recruit at my dad’s office, or people from different countries, cultures— no matter who they were our home was their home, a place to laugh, take a pause from life, and feast together.

I recently read a book by Sally Clarkson and her daughter, Sarah Clarkson titled The Lifegiving Home. Their tradition for Thanksgiving looked so much like ours, inviting those in who needed a place on a day when many are with family. Sarah stole the words from my mouth in explaining the awkwardness of gathering people in a home -- who are all “acutely aware of missing someone.” 

“But when we gathered round the kitchen island with its piles of food and took each other’s hands,” Sarah writes, “the hush that descended drew us into silence and thus into a strange awareness of one another. As my dad spoke a short blessing, I remember snatching a peek at the people around me, strangers, really, all of us holding hands as if we were old pals. I marveled, in my teenage shyness, at the way a prayer and a feast could knit so odd a group of people together.”

The tradition of the feast, if we let it, can be the venue in which God knits people together. I truly believe that when we feast, as the Clarksons say, we are worshipping God. We acknowledge our need for Christ, and we rest from the weariness of life. The table cultivates community. “When we choose to feast together,“ Clarkson says, “we acknowledge God’s artistry and provision and draw closer to him as well.” 

Traditions can be formed by simply inviting someone to sit at your table during holiday celebrations. Traditions can also be making sure the same recipe for stuffing is used every year - or the tradition could be to make a different recipe every single year! I would venture to say that it isn’t the actual habit of the tradition, but the heart and memories behind them that makes them so important. 

In the busy-ness of this world, traditions slow us down - they remind us of memories in the past, while building a foundation for future memories. I’ve heard it said once that traditions connect us to the past and are a bridge to the future. In them, we can honor those who have gone before us, while teaching those who will come after us. For us, I so long for my children to hold on to the tradition of loving the lonely, not only during the holidays, but every single day in between. 

Lara is a homeschool mom of two in West Texas. She is a graduate of Angelo State University with a B.A. in Mass Media with a focus in Journalism and a B.A. in German. She has a heart for sharing the gospel of Jesus to those near and far who have never heard his name. She blogs at Little School on Avondale and you can find her on Instagram and Facebook.