Righteous Traditions

My thoughts on Sister Lant’s talk “Righteous Traditions”

Sister Lant asks some very thought provoking questions, “What kinds of traditions do we have?” and “Are we consciously creating righteous traditions, or is life just happening to us?”

I know the rest of the talk is important, but want to discuss traditions we have, both good and bad.

Fortunately or not, I not only brought my traditions but those of my husband to my family. I brought some good ones and some bad ones and he did too. Some even clashed and we had to work out a compromise.

I think of all the huge holiday traditions we have. I was so poor we only celebrated the big ones and most of the time the traditions were dictated by the amount of money we didn’t have. Christmas was hard, but we celebrated even if we had a small Christmas. Somehow the Lord provided for us. Steve, on the other hand, wasn’t so poor (at least when he can remember) so they had a bounteous Christmas. I didn’t have stocking; he did and now we do. He always got a book from his mother; I didn’t and that was one tradition I continued. I always got underwear for Christmas; he didn’t and now my children get a pack of underwear for Christmas. My family always got a puzzle or game for Christmas; his family was hit and miss, now we get a puzzle or game every year. I always put up my Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving just like my mom; but we have two trees—mine and the family. We always acted out the Nativity; so did he and we still do it (thankfully I finally had a girl to take over the part of Mary). We always read the story in Luke and so did he and we still do today. But we have started our own traditions. Steve ALWAYS reads “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and we watch a Christmas movie (usually on Christmas Adam—that is the day before Christmas Eve). I always sing in our stake’s Christmas devotional and my children attend. We always go caroling on Christmas Adam.

What about the other holidays? We truly don’t have many traditions around holidays but we did start one of our own and this one comes from when my husband was courting me. We were dating at BYU and I had a night volleyball class the night of Valentine’s Day in 1989. During that class a glass trophy case fell on my head and shattered. Because I was in class I had to go to the ER to be checked out. That put me clear across campus and without transportation home. My cousin always walked me to my scooter after class, but he wasn’t able to come to the ER with me—he had to finish the class. Needless to say I was a bit upset that all my warm clothes were back at the PE building and so my by scooter. I only had my PE uniform on and it was February in Provo! I knew one of my roommates had a car, but the likelihood of her being home was slim to none, but I didn’t know who else to call. My best friend, who had a car was in the hospital and so I was between a rock and a hard place. Then the ER guy told me that because I was hit on the head, I couldn’t walk home but had to have someone come get me. I decided to call my apartment and see if someone could go find a car to come get me. It so happened that Steve was at my apartment and he came to get me. I didn’t know who was coming for me as my roommate just said that they would find someone. He got me and took me to the PE building where I changed clothes. He then told me to leave the scooter and that he would help me the next day get it. He took me home and then wouldn’t leave but insisted on coming in with me. “I need to make sure you make it up the three flights of stairs.” (YEAH RIGHT!) When I got in the apartment I told Steve that I needed to take a shower to get all the glass out of my hair. He still just stood there! I truly didn’t want to see anyone that day because it was a HORRIBLE day. The library didn’t have any of the books I needed for a report, the trophy case fell on my head, I have lost a ton of homework time by sitting in the health center and now this guy wouldn’t leave my apartment!

Well, I walked back to my room and taped on my door there was a construction paper heart. I opened my door and over my bed was hanging probably 75 construction paper hearts!!! On a few of them were words and I had to put them in order. Steve had spent the better part of the afternoon cutting and taping hearts all over my bedroom asking me out the next day. The next day’s date was truly the first of many that won my heart.

To this day, we spend February 13th cutting out hearts only to tape them to the bedroom door (our first apartment had popcorn ceiling and then our second had vaulted ceilings). We call it a Heart Attack. When the kids came along the Valentine Fairy started showing up and leaving a helium balloon with a deck of cards or something small holding it down. To this day we continue that tradition! It is now trickling down to my children. Sometimes I find my door heart attacked when I’ve had a bad day. Sometimes I will find something yummy outside my bedroom door with a note that has creative spelling!

We also have the tradition of going camping. This comes from my house. We were so poor that is about all we could afford. Of course my husband would rather rough it in a Hotel 6, but he is kind and lets me continue this tradition. I love to camp! I’m just hoping that this year we can afford to go camping and can find the weekend to do it in.

Other traditions our family has:
Family council
Family Home Evening
Family Scriptures
Family Prayer
Yard work together
Saturday clean up!
July 4th (we all wear red, white and blue)

I’m not sure many of these are “righteous” traditions but my hope and prayer is that they will build wonderful memories and that some will even be used in their future homes. And I fervently pray that the bad traditions will be tossed by the way side.