Posted 12/31/2004 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

I've been trying to catch up with my Lileks reading since I've been gone, and while I hit this piece a few days ago, I'm just now getting to it. It's just so perfectly, Lileks. And we all know what that means. . .

Tradition adds, and tradition takes away; every new ornament pushes another one out. Which is good, I suppose. It keeps the holiday from being just an elaborately staged play. Every year the plot is the same, and every year you improvise a few new lines. We switched to opening presents Christmas Morning a few years ago, because in 02 Gnat had a meltdown Christmas Eve. Fine by me; I prefer it this way. When I was growing up the tree had an ornament I made in school – a drum made out of a toilet paper roll and some painted Q-tips for mallets. It meant a lot to my Mom, obviously, and you could have given her a Faberge egg that came from the birth canal of a Romanoff queen and she wouldn’t have traded it for her son’s handiwork. It’s gone now, I’m sure. My dad didn’t put a tree for a few years after she died, and then he moved. It’s in the landfill now.

But it’s all in the landfill eventually. Maybe that’s an argument against Tradition. An argument for doing it differently every year. Or perhaps just the same old gentle reminder for Moderation, the middle way: a nod to the past, a hail-fellow-well-met wave to the new. (Unless it has spiked hair and a Quaalude habit.) This Christmas has felt like the first one we’ve had, to be honest; it’s the first one Gnat has really seen coming from a long way off, understood and enjoyed. She got it last year, but she’s so much more verbal now it’s a delight to see it unfold anew. Makes me realize that the traditions start now, for her. Did I give any thought to my parents’ traditions, after all? No. Who does?

Doesn't that say it all? I mean, everyone loves their momma, but if everyone ate off their momma's dishes, wouldn't we all be hunkered in a cave eating off of a rock right now?