Capturing December - Day 22: Tradition

[avrelia]

Tradition.

I don't know what to make a picture of that would illustrate meaningfully any holiday tradition to my satisfaction. SO I'll use words instead. And bulleted list.

- One of the biggest frustration of my life in North America is that I feel out of sync with the holiday season. It's not that I have completely different traditions, I have similar, but moved in time slightly, so it just makes everything awkward. I cannot accept fully North American ones, but lots of my childhood ones seem meaningless here, as they require participation of the crowds.

- my best holidays here were the ones when we celebrated Christmas with my Polish-Romanian friends, and celebrated New Year with Russian ones.

- still, when I look back, I see definite patterns emerging. Are they traditions? Not yet, but possibly on their way to becoming ones.

- every year I get depressed just before the New Year. I think of how little is accomplished, and that brings sorrow, Then I get better, as the old year goes away.

- every year I long to cook lots and lots of food, so I have to stomp on my culinary dreams, because, no one is going to eat so much food as I want to cook. It's just three of us.

- every year I want to do lots of holiday crafts with my son (it's a new pattern), and every year I do it three times at the best.

- every year I want to do something special for New Year, but we rarely do these days. Last year, though, we watched fireworks from our backyard.

- every year I want to watch lots of holiday movies, but never have time to watch at least two.

- every year I honestly wait for a holiday miracle. Occasionally it happens.