Creating New Traditions With Your Found Family
The holiday season represents a time of giving, celebration, and connection. In particular, the holidays bring out a wide variety of traditions during the revelry. These traditions are often passed down through families, cultures, or local groups to help ring in Christmas or other holidays. A family’s traditions may be spiritual, silly, competitive, somber, or anything in between. Most of all, yearly rituals help make the holiday season feel more special as we connect to those closest to us.
Yet, many people find themselves disconnected from their traditions, culture, or even from their family this Christmas. You may even be looking at Christmas with a feeling of loss and uncertainty about how to celebrate amidst a lack or loss of family traditions. What do you do when it’s the holiday season but you can’t celebrate the way you always did?
A Look at “Found Family”
Consider Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. This ragtag, unlikely team of not-quite heroes eventually saved the galaxy. Possibly even more spectacular, they found a family along the way. What starts as a seemingly disastrous group turns into one of the closest-knit teams in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Now you may be wondering, what does a Marvel movie from 2014 have to do with my disconnection from holiday traditions? Well, the Guardians each had lost their family of origin. Each one was isolated in one way or another. But through a series of adventures, near deadly mishaps, lots of 70’s rock, and ultimately saving the world, this crew creates a new home, a ”found family,” together. A family not bound by blood but by their care for each other. The Guardians came together with their unique backgrounds and created something new.
Maybe you can’t shoot lasers, fly through space, or fight off aliens, but consider the people you have around you. There could be a family right in front of you that simply needs to be gathered together this holiday season.
Creating New Traditions
If you gather with the family you’ve found and are unsure how to celebrate, consider traditions you could start this year to make the holiday season special. Here are a few places to start:
Share Photos of the Past
Like the “Ghost of Christmas Past” from the beloved Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a new tradition could be sharing photos of your past. Gather together for a meal and have each person present a picture and memories from their past. This could be a loved one who has passed, an image from childhood, or simply a meaningful moment. Reflect on how those pictured impacted your life. What do you miss about this person? What’s a funny memory from that time? How have you changed since that picture was taken?
Pick Your Christmas Tree
Go to a Christmas tree farm and pick out and cut down your own tree! This tradition works especially well with roommates or housemates. Get a group together and travel to an actual Christmas tree farm where you can ride out into the field and cut down your own tree. Once you’ve all decided on the perfect tree, grab some hot chocolate and pick out a new ornament to commemorate the year.
Make a Special Holiday Meal
One of the staples of Christmas is FOOD. Baking cookies is a common tradition, or you can pick any food or dessert to make. Have everyone work together or make it a competition to see who makes the tastiest, prettiest, or most unique version of your chosen treat. Or, if you are feeling particularly disconnected from your culture or country of origin, find recipes that represent your heritage and make these together!
Participate in Advent
Advent, or “arrival,” is a historical Christian tradition that marks a season of anticipation for the birth of Jesus. There are so many ways to participate in Advent: buy a fun Advent calendar with treats, practice a weekly spiritual discipline, engage in Advent daily devotionals from Scripture, light Advent candles, or pray each day leading up to Christmas. Take every day as an opportunity to deliberately reflect on Christ either individually or as a group. Talk to each other about what this anticipation season is teaching you.
Create a Nativity Display
Create a nativity display somewhere in your home or yard. Be creative in what materials you use, where you place it, and what you include. It can be as big or small as you want! One common Italian tradition is to create large nativity/Christmas displays in the window for passersby to view. Come together as a group to construct your display and talk about its meaning.
Christmas Painting Party
Painting is notoriously calming and therapeutic! It might feel like a struggle to paint if you feel like you’re “not an artist,” but art is for everyone! Gather your found family and paint a scene for the holidays. Maybe work on one big painting, pass around small canvases for each person to add to, or have each person paint their own piece.
Attend a Christmas Service
Christmas provides lots of services you can attend. Some churches conduct weekly Advent services, others wait until Christmas Eve for a candlelight service or Lessons & Carols. Gather your family together and Google a service to attend as a group. Whether you are looking for musical, liturgical, or informational, you can experience the Lord in many different ways this season.
Connection Through Traditions
No matter where you are this holiday season, I encourage you to pursue connections. Traditions provide an opportunity for shared experiences with those who are important to us. They are a gateway for connection and can bring together families, new and old. Anyone can be a part of your family, and you can all share in the excitement of discovering new ways to celebrate together. Whether this family is a “found family” of friends, a new family you’ve created with a partner, your biological family reunited, or one of the many, many other versions of family, try to practice one new tradition this year.