Traditions to Treasure

Rituals benefit our wellbeing and become our legacy

For those of you who are parents, no doubt you wonder if what you hope to impart to your children is sinking in at all. If the small gestures that you thoughtfully and deliberately do make any difference in creating the building blocks of their lives. Especially, in light of the fact, that teenagers tend to respond with one-word grunts and overwhelming indifference. So my heart soared after watching a video our 16-year-old son sent us the other morning to share a moment with us.

Once a month, my husband Andrea and I travel for a few days to a neighboring state for work. In our absence, our 16-year-old son’s household management has been a little bit of a trial-and-error experiment. After a very rocky, stressful start followed by 6 months of added maturity, he is now on his own to get up (a feat in itself), get ready, feed our menagerie (2 dogs, 2 cats, and a bird), and go to school. Naturally, I send him mom-reminder texts to ensure that the morning is going smoothly and that he is eating something halfway nutritious. After the sweet replies with lots of hearts, out of the blue came a video. My first thought was that of dread; I imagined he wanted to show us some awful mess that the dogs or cats had made so we could commiserate with him…but that wasn’t it at all.

Much to my surprise, it was a narrated video of him opening the daily Advent calendar and placing the little wooden piece on the magnetic manger scene. Yes, here was our teenage son, school backpack strapped on, stopping amid his rushed morning to open the little door of the calendar as he had done for the past 10 years and discover the piece for the day…all the while filming the whole experience so he could share it with us. He did that every morning for 3 days. I was so touched by his thoughtfulness, that I had tears in my eyes.

Furthermore, this same young man—all on his own—brought up the Christmas wreath from the basement and carefully hung it on the front door. And, one evening on his way home from a friend’s house, he went out of his way (and braved the line of slow cars) to drive down to a popular neighborhood of Spanish, Tudor, and Colonial estates that has an annual Christmas light installation on the many magnificent, century-old trees gracing their front yards. All by himself.

To top it off, I’ve asked him for his Christmas list and all he could come up with was a “gentleman’s valet tray” to organize his phone, wallet, and trinkets. Oh, and a sunglasses case. I just noticed I’m smiling as I write this. Why? Because all of this tells me that our Christmas traditions have taken root in our son…above and beyond the commercialization of our sacred holiday…and it couldn’t make me happier.

Traditions sustain us
Forgive me for repeating myself from past posts; for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with me, Andrea and I are die-hard traditionalists through and through. We have daily and weekly rituals such as our infamous Saturday night pizza and a movie during the year, and now at Christmas, we have loads of traditions, big and small, such as the aforementioned morning opening of the Advent calendar, Christmas Eve Mass followed by our customary clam chowder dinner, Christmas breakfast eggnog Belgian waffles, and many others.

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate the powerful importance and impact that traditions have on our overall well-being, and how much they can sustain and stabilize us as we age. In particularly lean years, when it was just the two of us and we decided not to exchange gifts, it was the traditions and rituals that buoyed us. Now, in our later years, these cherished customs provide comfort and memories that warm our hearts.

I remember a couple of Christmases where our splurge was the tree itself, but we nonetheless spent the morning going through all the same steps as past years…lighting a fire, reading the cards in our stockings (along with small chocolate treats and bookmark stocking stuffers), preparing a decadent breakfast, listening to music… just without the bounty of presents. It’s fair to say our dearly held traditions fended off feelings of despair, and I remember those times just as fondly—perhaps more so—than abundant years, because it was the spirit (not fleeting materialism) of the season that we were celebrating, and being together that brought us great joy.

Now, as I see my son on the verge of adulthood and observe his instinctual, impromptu behavior, it occurs to me how valuable our family traditions are for Alessio. All of the small, seemingly insignificant practices that add up to create our family identity are his heritage…a set of values that we are passing on to him and his future family, that will ground him in an ever-changing world. The collective family history that hopefully will someday bring him the same solace and consolation that it brought Andrea and me as we created them, and that will connect him back to us when we are gone. Agh, I’m tearing up again.

I’m reflecting on the time when my mom lived alone a state away before we brought her to live with us. I was saddened that she had dropped nearly all the family traditions I had grown up with. I know the attrition was due simply to how difficult and burdensome daily living had become…everything in her life had become a chore. But now, after experiencing the value of traditions, it makes me even more determined to avoid the pitfalls that entrap so many older people and lead them to that lonely place.

Simple is good
Writing this is reminding me to cement our current traditions and mindfully develop a few more in the coming years…which oddly goes against my nature. I am my father’s daughter and lean to being somewhat austere, but I see that inclination doesn’t serve me well in the long run. I have to give a lot of credit to Andrea, whose penchant for simple holiday rituals sets the Christmas tone in the house. As soon as he wakes up and comes downstairs, he cues up holiday playlists for the day in the kitchen and in the studio where we work. There are often old Christmas classic movies silently looping on one of the desktop computers as well as the great room TV. 

But I do my part. I’ve gotten our supply of Pandoro (an Italian Christmas bread that is out of this world, not to be confused with Panettone that is not allowed in the Favilli home), which Alessio and Andrea eat morning and night. The Pizzelle iron is coming out this weekend to make gifts for friends and neighbors. There are some black bananas in the fruit bowl begging to become banana bread, reminding me of my mom (I’ve got her recipe) and to bring the butter out of the fridge to soften. Yes. This is Christmas. This is living well, aging great.

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