Tradition.
Friday, November 28th, 2008With the closing of this last Thanksgiving I have officially begun a new Thanksgiving holiday tradition: getting so sick or injured I cannot eat and simply wait for sleep to overtake me.
It has not been easy and has, as a matter of fact, taken three consecutive years to reach a full tradition status. In 2006 it was straight up nausea. In 2007 it was a week of fever and aches (but oddly no stuffy nose so I don’t think it was the flu.) And in 2008 it was a super allergy attack and a left arm that couldn’t move. But now that it has I am going to embrace this newly minted Thanksgiving tradition with the same amount of gusto I devote to all the other traditions from the turkey to my relatives badmouthing me like I wasn’t there even though I am present.
Many people simply begin new “traditions” created out of nothing more than a fever induced dream and a desire to force people to remember them in some way, any way, it doesn’t matter just remember that I existed or else I may not actually exist at all! YAAAARRRGHH!!
Created traditions are not real traditions. Created traditions are, if applied only to an individual who created the “tradition” a sign of obsessive compulsive disorder, and if applied to others either A: a desperate cries for help by people suffering an existential crisis trying to find meaning for their lives outside of their own existence by imposing themselves on future generations and/or B: seeking to create an identity for themselves through cultural symbols. And this is how we get such travesties as the wedding “Unity Candle,” watching “Jingle All The Way” at Christmas time, and Kwanzaa. All of these are evil, wicked, godless attempts at the worst kind of social engineering, the kind that annoy me.
Real traditions require repeated practice, for a minimum of three years, WITHOUT the intention of creating a tradition. Then the activity may be continued as a tradition for the sake of remembering the previous occasions and events surrounding the occasions that birthed the tradition. These traditions can only be held as traditions though by those who were there at the birthing of the tradition, and of course those who would abandon their own legitimate cultural identity to assume the trappings of another cultural grouping. Because they are shallow pansies.
That is how we get ridiculous, and yet legitimate, traditions such as the Christmas Tree (begun as a magic ritual by Germanic pagans trying desperately to keep the evil Jutons disguised as Giant Wolves from eating the Sun and Moon or something and in an attempt to be like royalty, embraced by first the English and then the world), the 4AM Black Friday Shopping Mall Rush (begun by ruthlessly capitalistic shop owners and women with borderline neurotic bargain hunting/shopping addictions, and now shared in by millions of people who simply want to look ridiculous), and storming away from the table in a haze of hurt feelings, profanities, and bitter reproachments to everyone present (begun by every family at some time or another and practiced by everyone every now and again, even if it is just on the inside.)
Why do we do this? Because it is Tradition! And Tradition is how we remember who we are. And sometimes knowing who we are requires sacrifice.
For you that may mean recognizing that your pecan pie that never tastes quite right actually tastes perfect to everyone else. Or maybe it just means finally accepting that Uncle Frank vomiting all over the back porch heralds the begining of the time to open presents. For me it means that if by 11:30 AM next Thanksgiving day I feel good enough to sit down with my family to enjoy a delicious turkey with all the dressings, then I must hit myself in the face with baseball bat.
It is just a shame that the whole family can’t be involved.
-Bob
