49. Celebrating Holiday Traditions & Rituals With A Little Help From My Friends

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Welcome to episode 49. A girl take the lead for each

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week. We explore Womanhood in

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leadership, so it's the holidays and a time for Gatherings gifts

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and celebration of lots of traditions.

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And rituals I found myself with a question and where do these

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traditions and rituals come from.

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So I did a little research and found this book, we are what we

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celebrate and it's edited by a mati at Sony and Jared Bloom

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this book. Brings together classic and

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original essays written mostly by professors in sociology,

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history and speech, communication and covers a

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variety of holidays. So I pulled a few different

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threads. I thought you might find of

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Interest as we go on to celebrate our holidays for the

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next few weeks. There's also a discussion With

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my podcast friends who help us better understand the

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differences between traditions and rituals, and they also

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encourage us to question them. If they don't work for us, these

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friends have terrific podcast. You might want to check out like

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Melissa's mind your own Karma, the adoption Chronicles Rachel's

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raising vibrant. Kids Whitney's electric ideas

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and Misha's mindset check details about how to find them

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are in the show notes. And lastly, I'll share a memory

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from Cindy, Emma, theriot, who I'd like to thank for listening?

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I know, I have a few new listeners.

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I wanted to give a shout out to Sarah at labelled, Salon in Palo

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Alto. Thank you Sarah for listening to

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our podcast and the new haircut you gave me.

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I totally love it. And feel sassy and much.

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Lighter. A good look to welcome 2023.

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Anyone in the local Bay Area in need of a new look, please go

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see. See, Sarah, I'll put her contact

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info in the show notes to I hope you'll enjoy this holiday.

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Listen, here you go, where I'd like to start in this book.

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Many of the essays talk about how holidays have become

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child-centered and to make the point.

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I'm going to just read a paragraph from chapter 3 by Gary

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cross and it's called just for kids and what he's talking

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about. Our holidays, not just the

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December ones, but also the Halloween and birthdays and how

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we are very much Reinventing childhood innocence with each of

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these holidays. So let me read it.

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The anticipation of Christmas morning, the excitement of

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Dashing down the dark and cool Street.

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Trick-or-treating being the birthday, girls seated at the

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table surrounded by By Family mounds of presence and the

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candle lit cake or sharing an afternoon with the seldom seen

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father at Disney's Magic Kingdom.

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These are all fond memories shared by many modern American

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children. They are also rituals invented

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by adults to evoke in their offspring.

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The Wonder of childhood innocence very often expressed

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through gift-giving. Without too much exaggeration,

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we could say that holidays and pilgrimages manifestations of

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deep communal needs were changed into celebrations of wondrous

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innocence. In the last 150 years, this

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transformation coincided with both new attitudes towards The

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Young and the rise of consumerism Christmas and

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Halloween, became the quintessential festivals of

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Wanderers innocence. All vacations and tourist sites

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were transformed into children's times and places.

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So that points about Reinventing, a wondrous

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innocence kind of sets us up for not meeting the mark in a lot of

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ways. Like in my childhood, I remember

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my oh, my one evening, one Christmas.

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We had all the presents had been stolen out of my father's trunk.

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And he was able to get Toys for Tots to help us because he was a

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marine at the time. And so when I was and our ritual

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was that, we always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve at

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about 11 p.m. when my parents were no longer working, they

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make, wake my sister, and I up out of a deep sleep, and we'd go

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and open her presents. And so, we were already kind of

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sleepy, but we'd see the Christmas tree covered with

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toys. And in this case it just went on

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and on because my dad basically got all the leftover Toys for

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Tots. I'm from the Marines, and That

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moment that innocence I remember feeling that and I wanted that

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for my kids. So I try and try and try and

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reinvent that, and I wonder what you try and reinvent for your

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family. You know, some of that is it's

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they're just wonderful Traditions, but if you're, if

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you're feeling kind of like you're coming up short or not

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feeling particularly good about things, you know, I think we can

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Kind of say, you know that we're trying to reinvent, maybe

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something that isn't really realistic because they were

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feelings for us. I also in this book was

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intrigued by the differences between tradition and ritual.

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I'll offer this definition that I found online said, rituals

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differ from traditions in that rituals involve a series of

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actions that are repeated A tradition is similar in that

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beliefs or behaviors are passed down with cultural significance,

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tied to the Past. However, they do not need to be

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performed in a prescribed order, both Drew rituals and

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traditions, have an important place in families and Society,

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they are an important part of identity.

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Celebrate the unique cultural heritage's within families and

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build community. So I put The question to my

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podcast friends, like, what do they see about this?

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And here's what they had to say. You'll first here, Melissa and

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then Whitney and then Rachel and Misha also gives us a nice

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memory from her own childhood that she shares with her family.

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So, here we go. Definition of tradition can be

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limiting to some people wear. If they don't share something in

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the family or you can feel really left out and not belong

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and I don't know. Melissa.

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Do you have thoughts on that? I kind of have a hard time

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differentiating between those two you know ritual or

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tradition. I don't know I kind of feel like

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it's for me it's more gosh I don't know it's tradition, I

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think. More than ritual.

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Because for what we do every year, which it's kind of gotten

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messed up with covid. But my mom used to host cookie a

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sugar cookie decorating. So we'd all bring cookies that

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were already cut out and we'd have, you know, a thousand

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sprinkles and and different colored icing and all the

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grandkids and great grandkids would come over and we would you

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know, decorate hundreds of sugar cookies that we would eat on

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Christmas. You know, everybody would come

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together for that. So that's everybody looks

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forward to that and when it kind of stopped with covid, my nieces

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were just like heartbroken, you know, and my mom really hasn't

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picked it up yet, but you know, they're older and kind of

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nervous about hosting, you know, all these little kids coming

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over and stuff. So, but ours Traditions are a

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lot of round baking and things like that, my grandma.

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I remember her making, you know, Ginger creams.

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And fudge and Russian tea cakes. And, you know, all those things,

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I just remember my entire life, eating those things at Christmas

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time. So it's mostly like baking stuff

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for us. And then the other thing that I

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do with my daughter, we kind of have time just the two of us on

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Christmas morning. And we open our gifts to each

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other and have coffee and cookies.

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Just have our own, you know, time in the morning.

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And I know she really, really enjoys that so That's kind of

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what we do. I feel like if you take it

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outside, the context of the holidays, I, you know, like

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tradition seems like something like every year we do this.

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It's like if you think about like our tradition for

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Thanksgiving, there, something is like always going to

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Grandma's so nose, and when you say the word ritual, it

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definitely reminds me of something that's like repeated

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so that I get what you're saying.

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I just don't know, outside, like this here.

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Retrieval religion, realm, and maybe Rachel would have a better

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answer to this. Like how many people have stuff

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that they like do repeatedly throughout the season, you know?

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Yeah. Don't you feel like get it?

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Kind of talks about families. It's like you're passing down a

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tradition within your family, so like, from one generation to the

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next. I mean, it could be within one

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family, but I feel like tradition normally kind of

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insinuates that it's something within a family.

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Then ritual is often more used more in like a spiritual context

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of doing something tradition is some, you passed down.

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And, you know, ritual is something, maybe that's not

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linked to family, anything else that you do, that's not linked

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to something that was passed down.

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But you do, you know what I mean?

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I don't know. I sway Melissa because you were

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saying having breakfast with your daughter is Something that

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you do together. Yeah.

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So that's not really a tradition and I guess I think that's a

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good the ritual. Yeah, it's a good example.

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Yo, one other thing I've thought about a lot and talked on a lot

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of boundary work, I feel like some traditions can feel like

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shoulds and oppressive when they're really actually like a

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drain on Mom's and often times. I feel like sometimes we don't

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give ourselves permission to To say this, I don't like this.

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Like I can be empowered and like and so I think that there is an

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empowering message in like maybe like that, it's okay to like cut

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the tie to Traditions that don't serve you.

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And by listening to this episode, people might open their

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aperture to the fact that there might be like cool things that

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other people do that feel resonant to them that they can

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create their own Traditions when he brings up a really

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interesting point, though, that, And can either make you feel

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like Nostalgia and make you feel like the warm and fuzzies for

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the holidays of like, oh, I love this.

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I love listening to the music. The music brings us feeling and

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for me or the Christmas tree, you know, and decorating it and

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the light and that you're really enjoying it as a family or a

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tradition might bring up all these like expectations and it's

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like feeling of either guilt or dread or you know, whatever

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you're feeling. And that it's Empowering to say,

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you don't have to do all of the Traditions, you know, you can

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pick which ones are lighting you up and making, you feel the

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holiday come alive for you forces, which ones are kind of

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pushing you down and making you feel, you know, not great during

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this holiday season. Well, I don't know, and I think

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a ritual sometimes, I there's no feeling behind it.

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It's just an action that you're doing over and over and you

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might not have where tradition for me.

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Is you know I have all those nostalgic feelings and things

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but you know like you were talking about going to mass and

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how ritualistic that whole mass is.

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You could just go on autopilot and doing that little all those

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rituals and not you know, have any feelings behind it just

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because this is what you do every Sunday or you know,

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whatever. So I don't know when I hear

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ritual, I think of that more, because I grew up Catholic too.

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And so, I kind of just think of well, we're doing this again.

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You know, this is what we do kind of thing.

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But tradition, I have more of the feels behind that passed

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down, you know. I feel like some of the

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trickiest places contemporaries of mine who are in leadership

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roles, especially, like bigger companies have been is when they

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inherit a team. You know what, just came forward

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for me, when Whitney was speaking.

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Was that actually every work place culture has its own kind

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of culture and tradition? And oftentimes there are

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formalized through policy right and through rules of the

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workplace. Like I know when I was nursing

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we would have specific policies and procedures that are around

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everything right? And you could change them, you

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had to go through a formal process in order to change them.

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But when you come into a workplace, you immediately step

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into the traditions of that workplace, right?

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And you kind of have to assimilate and you don't

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necessarily always get to pick and choose but that those things

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can also shift and change over time.

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I am within that culture of that place and that maybe they do

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need to. And you also have rituals, you

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know, like when we give medication, we were actually

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wipe things down. We ritually, you know, the think

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we would check our medication. We do different things.

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So, it's interesting to think of ritual and tradition just within

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the workplace, and then also within the family environment

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because it within each family, we have our own kind of rules

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for the holidays. Right?

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Like, what are we eating? What are we doing for presents?

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What are we And for decorations and then kind of like each

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generation we're actually dealing with that or it's like

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each generation is kind of like maybe I want to do it a little

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bit differently. Like we're navigating that is

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like my brothers and I become adults and have our own children

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and like it kind of changes, you know, each generation.

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So it's interesting, I was thinking to just around the

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house like certain rituals, right?

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The way we wash our clothes, The Bold and put them away.

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You know, it's like constantly wash both.

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We don't think about it too much.

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We just do those things. It's good to reflect on it.

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I think a little bit because it's kind of what Melissa was

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saying we do go on autopilot and they just stack up.

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All of all the things quote were supposed to do, all those little

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do it this way. Through that way, you know that

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I love this thing. We think with your brain is

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learning that, you know, we talked about the habits all the

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time. So, like an art house for a

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laundry as you're talking about that, I used to do it all, like,

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you know, my husband. Everybody's and when the kids

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were younger and I basically said, you know, enough is

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enough, I don't want this role. And now we all do it on Saturday

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together. Like, it's already my kids are

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responsible for folding and hanging their stuff up.

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So we like I was able to like see it and be like I don't want

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this ritual anymore and we were able to like change that to a

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new tradition, the new expectation for everybody within

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the house and now I'm not doing everybody so you know yeah

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because of the tradition is the wife does all the laundry right

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Forever and Ever every year we my mom started helping us do a

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puzzle ever. A year her for Christmas and so

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it allowed her to do things while we were occupied as

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children. And so it's this puzzle with a

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bunch of different like Santa's on it and we the goal was that

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we had to have it done before Christmas basically to have it

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out and but we did it, we've done it every year consistently

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since we were children and we even do it now as adults.

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And it's just like, you know, a different family tradition.

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So that the same puzzle every year game puzzle.

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She's she's tried to buy a new Like buy one for each of our

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families so that we would have it and if they don't make it

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anymore, she can't replicate it. So she bought us each different

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puzzle so that we can have one for our family.

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So it's not the same one, but it's like the family prize.

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Like when we, when we have it it's very like coveted and you

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can't let any of the pieces get lost right.

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My gosh it's probably my favorite Christmas virtual that

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we do like we we we could talk about like the traditions of

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like going to get the tree together and like You get a live

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tree, like stuff like that, but we do an advent calendar.

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That's actually sewn by like a woman in my husband's family and

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there's a little pocket for each day and we write a little nice

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thing. We divvy them up and we write

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like a little things like really small things that we're going to

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do for each other and each morning.

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The person whose name it is draws one.

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So it might be something like like my daughter is like

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bringing breakfast to embed to my other daughter or like

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helping me more with dinner or it can also be something that's

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like nice for the community. So like one of my daughter's is

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like I'll pick up trash with you for 10 minutes with my husband

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you know so that's been nice anchors the giving sentiment of

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the season and kind of feel good and also I'm like allows us to

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kind of like slow down and remember what kind of what the

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seasons about. Some of my Favorite Christmas

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Memories have come from my childhood.

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And I've carried that into the way that we do Christmas today

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as an adult. And now that I have kids in my

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home that I'm raising. And one of these the most

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Cherished Memories, well, I would say to one of them the

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very, very first one that doesn't take a lot of

00:19:04
explanation is simply that we keep Christmas together as a

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family that on Christmas Day. We don't go out.

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We don't go with our Friends, we don't go Christmas day is a day

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where we just spend it together and we have good food and we do

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puzzles. We play games and we really just

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spend time with each other. Maybe it's going through the

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things that we got, for Christmas learning, how to work

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the things that we got, maybe technology or gains or whatever.

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But regardless, it's just time that we spend together and that

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is one of the most cherished and simple traditions, that I

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learned, as a young child, Another thing that I really,

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really appreciate that. My parents taught me how to do

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is, how to give thoughtful and meaningful gifts, like the kind

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of gifts that really tug at someone's heartstrings, because

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they mean so much. One of the things that my

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parents did after my little girl passed away, is they gave us,

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they gave me gifts that were, you know, tender and meaningful,

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like, my mom gave me a Christmas Box.

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With the book, called The Christmas box and it was a story

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about loss and grief and fulfilling that and and kind of

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that all coming full circle. And it's a really beautiful

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story, my dad that same year, gave me music that I used to

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sing to my little girl. And I've received from my sister

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one year, a drawing like a pencil drawing of one of her

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pictures, one of her. Autographed.

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She hired an artist to to kind of redo that or bring that to

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life in a different way. So, those are just some examples

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of some gifts that were given around grief, but thoughtful

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gifts, show up in all kinds of ways.

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My dad always called himself Scrooge at Christmas and we

00:21:01
received presence from Scrooge, as well as Santa Claus and the

00:21:05
presence from Scrooge. Weren't like overdone, they were

00:21:08
just meaningful. They were just small and

00:21:10
meaningful for example. Oh, and one of the The greatest

00:21:13
things about the Scrooge presence is that they were hid

00:21:17
at the at the back of the tree, they were kind of the ones that

00:21:19
were the last to open or the last to be found and our Scrooge

00:21:24
presence that my dad would give us.

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Might be like dainty things for girls like necklaces or jewelry

00:21:30
or something like that, that kind of was him really stepping

00:21:33
into a world that he didn't know much about.

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But trying to dote on his girls. Maybe they were puzzles and

00:21:38
things that we could do together as a family.

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And another thing, That Scrooge gave us that was extremely

00:21:46
meaningful, that I loved so much was we would open a box with

00:21:51
crisp money with the Declaration that the only way that that

00:21:55
money was to be spent, was to be on a sister date with all three

00:21:59
of us, sisters present, and he did that, as a way to help us

00:22:04
build our relationships, you know, as we were going through

00:22:08
life. So we would as sisters get to

00:22:10
choose what we were going to do for our sister day that Was AKA,

00:22:13
you know, sponsored by Scrooge. And it was such a beautiful

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thing. And then carrying that forward

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and and letting my boys experience, those same things,

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my dad has since passed away and we still have Scrooge presents.

00:22:30
We saw this group presents under the tree.

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Because sometimes he, he puts a little idea into one of our

00:22:39
hearts to carry forth for him and sometimes it's in memory of

00:22:43
him. Sometimes, it's as simple as his

00:22:45
favorite treats at Christmas, sometimes it's things like

00:22:50
playing cards with customized photos on the back.

00:22:53
That help us to remember him when we're spending time, as a

00:22:56
family playing games. And sometimes, it's just things

00:23:01
that help us remember him. Like little photos that are like

00:23:06
cutouts of him like you know, or blankets that have his photo on

00:23:11
on it or something that help us remember him at Christmas.

00:23:15
These are the things that bring that richness to Christmas, that

00:23:19
bring so much depth to the feeling and therefore the memory

00:23:25
that we carry forth about our Christmas as with our family.

00:23:28
And as I had mentioned in the opening, I have one more

00:23:33
Christmas memory to share with you from Cindy, Emma theriot.

00:23:38
She writes. Hello Yolanda.

00:23:40
My favorite tradition. As a child was watching my

00:23:43
mother set up the nativity scene.

00:23:46
She always placed it in a prominent place, so it caught

00:23:49
the eye of everyone that entered our house during the Christmas

00:23:52
season. When I was in the 7th grade, our

00:23:55
school st. Ferdinand's put on a living

00:23:58
nativity. There were students at played

00:24:01
the roles of Mary Joseph and the It's the angel was played by my

00:24:05
friend Susan backer, she stood on a platform above the crash,

00:24:10
with her arms, spread in protective adoration.

00:24:13
The rest of the school was on the stage and performed as a

00:24:16
choir, it brought the meaning of Christmas truly alive.

00:24:20
For me, that year, these beautiful memories come back to

00:24:24
me at Christmas when I set up my nativity scene, merry Christmas

00:24:29
and happy holidays to you. And to all What a nice way to

00:24:33
end our episode today. Cindy, thanks for sharing this

00:24:37
and thanks to everyone who is listening.

00:24:44
So thank you for listening today and we sure hope you enjoyed

00:24:46
this episode. If you did, please leave a

00:24:49
comment wherever you listen to your podcast.

00:24:53
You can also join our public Facebook group, girl, take the

00:24:56
lead or visit our website girl, Take the Lead pod.com, if you're

00:25:01
new to the The podcast, let me know by sending me an email.

00:25:06
I'd love to welcome you all. So it's that time of year to

00:25:10
send our winter quarterly newsletter, send us your email

00:25:17
and let's try it again. Thank you for listening today

00:25:22
and we sure hope you enjoyed this episode.

00:25:24
If you did, please leave a comment wherever you listen to

00:25:27
your podcast. Join our public Facebook group

00:25:31
girl. Take the Need or visit our

00:25:34
website girl, Take the Lead pod.com, if you're new to the

00:25:38
podcast or would like to join our winter quarterly newsletter,

00:25:43
send us an email at yo, at yocan e.com.

00:25:49
I'd love to welcome you and also include you on the email list.

00:25:54
Next week I'll be closing out 2022 with highlights from our 50

00:25:59
episodes. Can you believe it?

00:26:01
What a Ernie. It's been and thank you for

00:26:04
taking it with me. I'll talk to you soon.

00:26:08
Bye.

49. Celebrating Holiday Traditions & Rituals With A Little Help From My Friends

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