Traditions and Rituals
My inner circle knows that I place a lot of value on traditions and rituals. From camping on May long weekend, to celebrating Canada Day at our dear friends’ cottage, to hosting the “Church of Football” every Sunday of the NFL season, to hosting “Friendsgiving” (I co-opted American Thanksgiving; we all know that real Thanksgiving happens in October), to family Christmas baking weekend, to decorating the Christmas tree while watching Die Hard for what seems like the millionth time, traditions and rituals play a big part in the lives of me and my family. The past 20 months have both flipped many of our traditions and rituals on their head and highlighted the importance of the traditions and rituals that we observe.
Our May long weekend camping trip has twice fallen victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, with both Ontario Parks and Parks Canada shuttering all of our favourite places in an effort to rein in the spread of the virus. We still got out camping during the pandemic, but not on the weekend that traditionally kicks off the camping season here in Ontario. We made a point of getting out for hikes on May long weekend each year, but it wasn’t the same.
Our friends’ ritual of hosting Canada Day at their cottage has gone by the wayside during the COVID-19 pandemic, because an indoor gathering of that size just hasn’t been prudent. We’ve made the most of this by developing a new “pandemic ritual” of celebrating Canada Day with my husband’s family. We’ve set off fireworks, played guitar and sang around the campfire, and gone late night swimming with glow-in-the-dark balloons studding the surface of the water. My niece and nephew remembered their first “pandemic Canada Day” and they were anxious to see the return of everything that had happened the previous year that made it special when Canada Day rolled around this year. Their parents have been going through the process of getting a divorce, so it was nice to get to be there for them and participate in a day that was just pure fun. We all needed a bit of fun.
The “Church of Football” has largely been closed throughout the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, there was a standing open invitation to our friends to join us on Sundays in watching the games, and we would make a big feast for everyone who came (usually with a theme – Oktoberfest, Pizza Party, An Ode to the South, Diwali, and Friendsgiving, just to name a few). It’s easy to lose touch with good friends when you are managing the day-to-day stresses of balancing career and family. What Football Sundays gave our group of friends was an opportunity to regularly connect and enjoy each other’s company over a shared interest. I have often found myself longing for the return of the NFL season in the middle of spring, not necessarily because I missed football (…okay, maybe a little bit because I missed football), but because I missed the ritual of a weekly check in with our friends. We attempted to host it virtually, but my husband was suffering from Zoom fatigue and this just led to us bickering. Virtual Football Sundays didn’t last. We did manage to host a couple of outdoor Football Sundays at the start of the season this year while the weather cooperated. Unfortunately, Canadian winter puts some firm limits on the number of Sundays when this could be done. This break in the action has highlighted to me just how important this ritual is to me. It’s not about the football. It’s not about the food. It’s about being surrounded by the people that I love. My heart longs for a return to the good old days of the “Church of Football”. We are smack in the middle of the NFL season, yet I find myself yearning for the return of football season. My fingers and toes are crossed that by next NFL season, we can have a true return of all that I love about the NFL season.
Last weekend was family Christmas baking weekend. Basically, this entails making a truly ridiculous amount of Christmas cookies and squares, all of which will be stashed in our respective deep freezers and doled out as needed throughout the holiday season. My brother and his family hosted this year. My sister-in-law asked my mom and I how long we had been doing family Christmas baking weekend. The answer? Since I was 3 years old. We’ve missed a few years in there. When I was writing law school exams, our baking tradition had to be put on pause. This longstanding family tradition has always been a favourite for me. I love spending time with my mom, and now also with my sister-in-law, working together in the kitchen. My mom’s shortbread cookies will always taste like Christmas to me. This year my son (age 2) and my niece (age 1) got to help decorate the cookies with sprinkles.
This weekend we are observing two of our family rituals. On the Saturday after American Thanksgiving, we always go out and buy our Christmas tree. We then decorate our home and watch Die Hard. It’s just not the Christmas season until Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Plaza (sorry for the spoiler, but you’ve had 33 years to watch it). On the Sunday after American Thanksgiving, we host “Friendsgiving”. This will be a massively scaled back “Friendsgiving”. Only another family from my son’s daycare is invited (we figure we’re exposed to them anyway). While I am sad that I won’t have a house full of some of my very favourite people, I am happy for the opportunity to get to better know the lovely family of one of my son’s friends.
The COVID-19 pandemic has robbed me (and no doubt many of you) of countless traditions and rituals over the previous 20 months. However, it has also demonstrated to me how much I value these traditions and rituals. Traditions and rituals help to preserve the things that we cherish most.
I fear that MS will rob me of even more traditions and rituals in the future. Will I be able to go camping way off the grid? Will I have the energy to host large gatherings of friends and family? I was discussing this fear with one of my oldest and dearest friends. He told me: “Your core values and interests don’t need to change – but you may have to look at approaching them in a different way depending on your limitations”. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in these words. I realize that the COVID-19 pandemic did the same thing. I had to alter how a lot of my traditions and rituals were observed, but I was still able to observe most of them in some way. Our traditions and rituals help to fill our buckets. Oddly, the COVID-19 pandemic may have taught me a lesson about preserving the traditions and rituals that I hold dear in the face of adversity.
I’m off to kick back with an eggnog in my new Christmas jammies (family matching jammies – my husband and dog just barely tolerate this level of Christmas enthusiasm) and watch the best Christmas movie ever made, because neither COVID-19 nor MS has taken that tradition from me.
Yippee Ki-Yay…
