As the major holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years – approach, I find myself wondering about my favorite holiday traditions that correlate with the season. Some of my traditions are typical holiday shenanigans that many families participate in. But for some, I wonder how they even became a tradition in the first place. Each holiday has some sort of tradition in my family, even if it is difficult to notice at first. However, each and every tradition  builds who I am today and what I will continue to do in the future. 

Thanksgiving

Although others may find Thanksgiving boring or see it as just a break from school, I love Thanksgiving! I get to see my extended family while also eating food; it’s the best of both worlds! It also holds one of my favorite family traditions: the annual Thanksgiving scavenger hunt. We don’t participate in the scavenger hunt quite as much nowadays, but when I was younger, it was my favorite thing to do. Basically, my aunts, uncles, and cousins all collect at my grandparents house down in the Villages, Florida. The Villages is a golf-cart town, so you can get almost anywhere in the town with a golf cart through the designated golf cart paths. We would split up into about three teams that my grandparents put together and would receive a list of places that we would need to find within the town and take a selfie in front of. The three teams were equipped with only the golf cart and the list of places; there was no GPS allowed. All three teams would race around, trying to get to all the places and back to the house first. My grandparents would then judge the pictures to ensure no one skipped any places on the list. The first team to get back in time with all the pictures would win a prize. I never remembered what the prize was, but I always remembered the joy and competitiveness that raced through me that day. This tradition is one I dearly want to bring back to my annual Thanksgiving day, but sadly, my entire extended family hasn’t gotten together down at my grandparents house in a long time. Looking back, this family tradition is one that I want to implement into my future life with my kids and one day grandkids. The joy and togetherness of it all altered me today as I long for the clock to rewind so that I may just experience it once again. 

Birthdays

I believe that birthdays are a personal holiday that each and every person is gifted with. On each of my birthdays, dating back to who knows when, I smash my face into my cake after blowing out the candles. After Covid, I only smash my face into my piece that has already been cut, but this tradition is one of my favorites. The first time I remember doing this tradition was at my fifth birthday party. We went to a painting studio and I had this big, purple butterfly cake with a rainbow swirly lollipop in the center. I absolutely loved this cake and this party, and I even still have the artwork I made that day hanging up on my bedroom wall. This is another tradition that has slowly faded out as I have grown older, but I want to pass it down to my children when they are younger because it provides a child-like sense of joy that I want to preserve. 

Christmas

Finally, the holiday that holds the most traditions that make you really reminisce. My family has a ton of traditions for Christmas such as going to mass as a family on Christmas Eve, setting out cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer, and even making monkey bread on Christmas morning. But one sticks out in particular: our matching family Christmas Eve pajamas. My grandmother puts together separate family Christmas pajamas for themselves, my two aunt and uncle’s families, and my family. We each get separate themes that revolve around Christmas, so one family could be Grinch themed, while another is Rudolph themed. We all open the presents containing the pajamas over FaceTime, revealing each family’s theme that year. We then put the pajamas on, and take a family photo over FaceTime. This family tradition is one of my favorites and is another one that I wish to implement in my future family. It always brings everyone so much joy and anticipation for Christmas the next morning and it brings us all together once more. 

If you can’t tell, I like when my family is brought together through these silly little traditions. Although these traditions may seem a bit strange or random, they have really made me the person I am today and who I want to be when I am a parent or a grandparent.