Blogvember post the 19th … new traditions

Coffee, rituals and traditions

I had coffee on Sunday afternoon with three lovely women, all of whom were gifted to me by Twitter. This is not a post about how much I love twitter, although I do and it is not a post about the women, well not really.

During our short time away from our everyday lives, we talked about an enormous range of subjects. New jobs, moving house, moving continents, negotiating mama friendly working hours with sometimes unsympathetic bosses, new looks, new hair, toilet training, operations, children’s parties, new cars, holidays, camping, driving, hotels, eating out, dream kitchens, sharing responsibilities, cooking together, house husbands, working husbands, working wives, staying home wives, study, real estate, the list was long and glorious.

All of us have had big changes this year. We got around to the end of the year celebrations. Plans, hopes and dreams. We all expressed our desire to enjoy the holidays and the family time. We all expressed different reservations about how this might pan out for us. We talked through mothers in law, brothers, sisters, kids, partners, extended families and all the joy and challenges that family bring. All of us have different relationships to manage, aspects of family to let go, and all of us hold a little torch wishing that everyone will get on and the stress levels will be as low as possible.

One theme struck me as we meandered through the many plans and preparations, we were all hopeful of forging our own traditions. It would be lovely if we could make our own traditions. Wouldn’t it be gorgeous to start new rituals that we really loved?

We all wanted to be able to do our own thing and maintain all the important traditions that are held so dear by our extended families. The delicate balance between keeping ties strong and breaking some of the strings which are holding us. How can this be done?

How can we make anew while holding onto the old?

Christmas. How can we remake it?