New Traditions

Holidays call for traditional family and religious practices. Year after year, families engage in activities such as cooking a big feast for holidays such as Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. On Thanksgiving, many of us arrange to visit family and contribute to cooking part of the massive family feast.  For Christmas, we pride ourselves on making mega-Christmas lists that include numerous gifts that amount to a costly sum. Tradition calls for picking out a tree, decorating the house, carolling, and much more.  Each year, it's these types of traditions that generate holiday cheer. 

Now, think about this. We live in a world where change is constant. Designers break away from tradition to make way for newer, more contemporary creations.  We have several, new methods of communication that didn't exist years ago.  There's just something exciting about newness.  Even mixing traditional methods with a new twist still create a new, unique outcome.

Although our society is always on the verge of change and discovery, many people still continue to approach
holidays traditionally.  My question, though, is:  Is it ok to mix up the holiday season to keep it fresh?  For example, my immediate family opted to spend the day together (movies) and dine out for Thanksgiving this year. Even though we didn't travel to my grandmother's house in Raleigh and help cook, we still called them, and let them know how much we loved them.  This Thanksgiving was just as memorable and filled with loving memories as all of the others.  For Christmas, we plan on sponsoring a family, and providing them with things on their wish list.  Instead of getting gifts for each other, we've opted to take a vacation instead.  We still put up the tree and decorated, however, we're having Christmas with a twist this year. 

Im curious.  What do you all think about the holiday seaason? Would you prefer to stick to tradition? Or do you agree with switching things up sometimes?

-Brittani Hunter