Christmas is only days away. Are you ready?
Customs vs Traditions
There are many ways people celebrate Christmas. Some things they do consistently year after year, like decorating a Christmas tree and exchanging Christmas presents, reading the Bible’s account of Christ’s birth, or attending a Christmas Eve Candlelight Service or Midnight Mass. Other things may be more hit or miss. Christmas cards may be sent one year and never again. Other things, like watching Christmas movies, going Christmas caroling, and baking holiday goodies, may be done sporadically over the years. (I find my Christmas plans often fall into the “hope to do” rather than actual “do” category. How about you?)
Does your family have Christmas traditions? Or are the things they do just Christmas customs?
Not sure? That’s understandable since we use the words tradition and custom interchangeably, but while they’re similar, they’re not the same.
Time is the main difference between them. Traditions begin as customs. Then, over time, as a specific practice, belief, or ritual is passed down from one generation to another, the custom becomes a tradition.
Did You Know…
- Usually, it’s thought that a custom must be passed down twice through three generations to be considered a tradition.
- The book, The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, published in 2005, was about the Aebersold family’s custom of having an elf doll “watching” their daughters. In the days before Christmas, he would report to Santa if they were naughty. Thanks to this book, the family’s “custom” is on its way to becoming a U.S. Christmas tradition.
Family Custom . . .
The house I grew up in had a living room that could be closed off. It was a “special” room we didn’t play in as kids. But it was where we placed the Christmas tree every year. On Christmas Eve, as we were going to bed, the door to the living room was shut. It wouldn’t be opened again until Christmas morning when Mom, Dad, and Grandmother were sitting comfortably inside, ready to take photos.
When we moved, we put the tree up in the den. There was no way to close that room off, so we girls were required to wait upstairs until the adults were up and ready for us.
This was our family custom, but I think a lot of families did the same thing as owning a camera became more common. This “wait” idea provided parents with a chance to make sure they caught the excitement on little faces, as well as have a hit of much needed coffee before the Christmas morning craziness began.
. . . To Family Tradition
I’ve spent every Christmas at Mom and Dad’s home. Even when I lived in Tennessee, I always came home for Christmas. With two married sisters in their own homes with their own children, only my baby sister, until she married, joined me at our parent’s home first thing on Christmas morning.
I didn’t realize how ingrained in me this Christmas morning ritual was until a little over twenty years ago. That morning baby sister had been called and prodded to get moving. She’d promised to arrive soon, but I was still waiting. That’s when the absurdity of what I was doing hit me, and I had to laugh. There I was, a nearly forty-year-old woman, sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting for my sister to arrive before I went downstairs so we could enter the den at the same time.
At least one of my sisters continued this custom with her children. Now they are grown with kids of their own. Though not all put the Christmas tree in a separate room that can be closed off, they all practice making the kids wait until the parents are ready. Since they are the third generation of our family to practice this custom that Mom and Dad started, our family custom can now be called a family tradition.
The World
Of course, the U.S. is not the only country that celebrates Christmas. While Christians around the world remember the reason for Christmas with church services and other Christian-based activities, other countries celebrate the season in a variety of different ways specific to their culture and location. (My favorite is Iceland’s tradition!)
Whatever your family’s Christmas customs and traditions are, I pray your Christmas will be joyous and all your loved ones will be near.
Did You Know…
- Jolabokaflod (“Christmas book flood”) began during World War II when Icelanders gave each other books as Christmas gifts. Paper, being one of the few things not rationed in the country, meant there were plenty of books to be given.
- In Iceland, Christmas Eve is the main gift-giving day. When the presents have all been opened, everyone spends the rest of the evening reading and sipping hot chocolate.