traditions

For as long as I can remember, about three decades now, Christmas has always been the same. There were variations every now and then, an inconsequential change of place maybe or a little detail altered, but they didn't do more than affirm the rule. A tradition was started before I was old enough to realize what was going on around me. Whenever I came home in December these last few years, be it from Jena, Salt Lake City, Grenoble, or London, I knew exactly what was going to happen.

The days leading up to Christmas, their number depending on when exactly I had turned the key at home, are spent in frenzied last-minute gift shopping and pass in a rush. The speed slows abruptly on the morning of the 24th. The outside world ceases to exist; we are a family in a home. My sister and I put up the tree and decorate it festively: Silver and red glass baubles, delicate straw and metal ornaments, and, never mind progress, never mind the potential dangers, real candles adorn our tree, a fragrant conifer or branches thereof.

We are an orthodox bunch in other ways, too. Stollen, the fruit cake that Dresden is famous for, is only cut on the 24th. Advent is a time of fasting, creatively reinterpreted as not eating pieces of cake that have enough calories to power all the twinkling lights in all our neighbors' windows for several hours. After the breaking of the symbolic fast, we go to Church for Christmas service. Over the years, this activity acquired a bit of a silly flavor for me because I stopped believing, but I have to admit that nothing gets me better into the festive mood than church bells and organ music, thoughtful words from the priest, the Christmas story and Silent Night from croaky throats. Christmas is, after all, a religious celebration.

Walking home after the service, with a trombone quartet playing from a balcony high up on the spire if we're lucky, comprises the most peaceful moments of the night, the minutes I cherish most. It's quiet on the streets and dark, people move in dreamy slowness, snow might be falling, and the world is reduced to my thoughts and expectations and the love for my family.

At this emotional zenith, we change direction completely. Back in the warm apartment, we light candles, exchange gifts, play with new toys for a while, and later sit down for a quick dinner followed by boardgames and wine. It gets louder and jollier with every empty bottle. Happy hours pass quickly, and it is inevitably past midnight when the family retires into their beds, exhausted but full of glee.

That's how it was most years. This year for the first time, ominous thoughts clouded my merriment. Question kept swirling around my head, not letting me play cheerfully. Why am I coming back? I am no kid anymore, and I don't come for the gifts. In between throws of the dice, I clearly saw myself sitting in the wrong place, on the same old table, playing the same old board games, as if some video sequence had been stuck in the same for decades. Doesn't growing up mean moving on and letting go of the past?

And yet, I don't think I'll give this habit up anytime soon. The other day, I wrote about roots and wings, the place you come from and the places you go to. It seems to me that traditions, like our interpretation of the Holy Night, are the glue between the two. A recent article in TIME magazine puts it eloquently: If ambition and opportunity spin us off in every direction, traditions reel us back to where we came from so we can see how we've grown.

But traditions are also mediators between roots and wings; they let roots and wings interact. New roots, the result of strong wings, can only be grown with the nurturing care of traditions, either adapted from the past or created anew. Without traditions, life is interchangeable and anchorless, and a person such deprived must be puzzled and confused.

The TIME magazine article ends with a fine sentence that will also conclude this post: At their best, traditions make us better; at the very least, they remind us how far we've come and how lucky we are. There couldn't be a better holiday than Christmas to celebrate that.