Wheel of the Year: Thoughts On Rhythm, Tradition, and Rituals

Rituals. Traditions. The rhythm of the year. I am having issues with these.

When I was young, my traditions were those of my parents. Unfortunately, they didn’t really jive with my values. My family’s traditions were deeply rooted in the consumerism cascade that started in my mother’s 1950s home and followed her into my 80s and 90s upbringing. There was no real nod to religion in our secular home, but easter meant overflowing baskets of summer toys and Halloween meant lots of candy, while Christmas brought on my mother’s competitive gift giving expeditions and odd need for “fairness.” (The value, amount, and physical size of the gifts my sister and I received had to be exactly the same. This meant we often received useless items in the spirit of being “fair.”)

The lesser holidays were not as consumer driven, but I am not comfortable with patriotism bordering on nationalism or the overt racism that they embody. Thanksgiving? No thank you, we do not celebrate genocide or colonialism. Fourth of July? Yuck, more colonialism, nationalism, and an odd celebration of heart-attack inducing meat overload. 

When the kids were young, we celebrated superficially. It’s easy with small kids. A picnic in spring with a small basket of sidewalk chalk and a new kite was lovely. Halloween costumes, always homemade with tons of planning, along with trick or treating was a ton of fun with littles. Christmas was kept simple and small, but still the excitement of the kids for a few new toys helped make the day festive. 

Now, the kids are grown or nearly so, and trying to force these holidays just seems, well forced. 

Last year we tried an experiment: no holidays of any note. We went on a picnic and a walk for Christmas, and gave the kids each a small gift. Halloween was completely ignored, even though it had always been the family favorite. I’m not sure what day easter fell on, or any of the other holidays for that matter. 

New Year’s was the only holiday we celebrated, but only because we already have a strong family tradition for that evening -- a family fondue party, followed by silly games like charades. We also have a family book, where we each write down a highlight from the previous year and a hope for the upcoming year. We read through past years and add a card for the next year. Yes, we definitely have NYE dialed in. 

So I’m trying to be a bit more mindful as we enter into the fall period and the flurried onset of the religio-consumer holiday season. What makes NYE work? It’s adaptable to all ages, for one. It was fun with small kids and it’s just as fun with newly minted adults. It’s easily expandable -- we can add new friends and old, or new family members as the kids start to pair off (as one already has). It also hits on the main things of a good tradition -- good food and unique activities with a dash of nostalgia on the side. 

Being the organized type, I started with a list:

What A Holiday Should Include

• A feast of some sort
• Secular, nonconsumer appeal
• Natural elements and seasonality
• Cultural ties
• All ages activities
• A holiday specific tradition

Next, my focus turned to which holidays we should celebrate. Although most of the holidays on our US calendar have roots in either conquest or religion (one and the same, amirite?), it is important to give some honor to cultural roots. So my primary goal was to keep the yearly pace of our family festivals roughly analogous to those of our culture. This is what I came up with:

Our Feast Days

• Spring Equinox (March 20/21)
• Correlates roughly with Easter, and it’s nice to welcome back the first signs of new growth.
• Celebration ideas: Picnic (good weather) or fancy brunch/indoor picnic (rainy weather). Also, a competitive egg hunt! Each person is assigned an egg color, and then everyone gets an empty egg of each color. You fill the eggs how you see fit - silly jokes, coins, fortunes, complements, candy -- whatever. It’s like Secret Santa meets White Elephant meets Easter Bunny. You hide the eggs and then everyone looks for their color and gets the “prize” inside.
• Feast Ideas: Berry Honey Cakes, Picnic
• Earth Day (April 20)
• This day is 100% in line with our family’s values.
• Celebration ideas: This isn’t so much a holiday of celebration, but one of service. We did a beach cleanup last year, and in year’s past we have done trail cleanups. We will continue to do so. We usually pack lunch, pick up a picnic from the farmer’s market, or visit a restaurant that specializes in local foods. 
• Summer Solstice (June 20/21)
• A midsummer holiday is a lovely thing, but the fourth isn’t really something that has ever appealed to my family. Even when the kids were young they weren’t that into it. Solstice, though, is something we can get behind.
• Celebration ideas: Camping trip and bonfire! Lots of playing -- frisbee, slingshot target shooting -- and exploring. Staying up late to see how the sky never gets fully dark this far north on the longest day. 
• Feast Ideas: Grilling of course, and good ol’ campfire cooking. With a layered berry cake or strawberry shortcake - the true flavors of summer in the PNW. 
  
• Fall Equinox (September 20/21)
• I never understood labor day -- it’s supposed to be a holiday for the working man, but the blue collar worker ends up putting in overtime while the bosses and the government get the day off to stuff their faces with greasy food at the lake. I’ll take the equinox instead, thank you very much.
• Celebration ideas: A hike to see the fall leaves or a visit to a u-pick farm, corn maze, or similar harvest-related activity. Followed by a picnic, perhaps around a fire if allowed (it’s still sometimes fire season in September) and plenty of outdoor games.
• Feast Ideas: A giant charcuterie board with all the warm flavors of the season -- nuts, cheeses, meat for the boy and any guests, fruits, vegs, and dips. Dessert is fruit or pumpkin handpies, once again in fall flavors. Add cider, cocoa, and any other warming drink to the mix. 
• Halloween (October 31)
• Perhaps it’s the Celt in our veins, but this was a family favorite up until the last year, when we simply didn’t know how to celebrate with no young children and living in a new area. We used to have a huge Hallow’s Eve party, and perhaps we will get back to that in the future. 
• Celebration ideas:  Although 2020 isn’t the year for big parties, I see those again in our future. Especially once we buy our land next year -- big outdoor feasts and bonfires with good friends, new and old. As for more subdued family holidays, such as 2020 necessitates, we will go on a “haunted hike” during the day and I have an at-home mystery/escape room game ready to go after the evening feast.
• Feast ideas: A fancy harvest feast with plenty of fall goodies. Roast this and that, stuffing, rich vegetable sides, dinner rolls, the whole 9 yards. Pumpkin cheesecake for dessert, of course!
   
• Winter Solstice (December 20/21)
  
  
• This will be analogous with Christmas, a holiday I’ve always felt ambivalent about, as I detailed above. We will strip it of the religious overtones and redirect the overt consumerism as much as possible. We will probably still celebrate on the 25th, simply because most people have this day off but have to work on the solstice.
• Celebration Ideas: We do have one tradition, shared by many -- on the eve (24th) we order pizza then go look at the lights. As for the day of, we will start with simple gifts, just one or two each, many handmade. We also have a tradition of giving a handmade ornament to each person, and filling stockings with sweet treats. We always watch the world’s worst Christmas movie -- Cricket on the Hearth -- followed by the second worst movie -- Frosty 2. If it’s a nice day, we go on a walk by the beach, if not, we stay home and play games and laugh. I guess we do have traditions!
• Feast ideas: The most important feast tradition is the sun cake. A sunny citrusy or fruity cake with small charms baked inside that tell the “future” to those that find a charm in their slice. Before that, though, we nod to Mo’s New Mexican roots and have a tamale dinner, with adobe corncakes, posole, spanish rice, and jicama-avocado salad.
• New Year’s Eve (December 31)
• Ah, NYE! I love new beginnings, although the traditional loud, crowded parties aren’t really my thing. I also love that we have strong NYE traditions in place. Hopefully, this means the boys won’t ever need to feel pulled between our home and the inlaws for the holidays, when that day comes. The inlaws can have the 25th, we are more than content with NYE.
• Celebration ideas: We read past years from the family highlight book and add our new highlights and goals. Then, we play super loud interactive party games, like Charades or Cards Against Humanity. Sometimes one or more of us stays up long enough to make some noise at midnight. 
• Feast Ideas: Fondue! It’s always fondue. Cheesy fondue with bread, veggies, and meatballs (vegan and not) for dipping, along with chocolate fondue with fruit and cookie dough balls. Served with fancy sparkling ciders (boozy and otherwise).

Such a long post, I know! But, it was really important to me to get this worked out now. In the end, our lives are a composite of the good we put into the world. Following the rhythm of the seasons and the year, finding a way to connect and celebrate with friends and family, that may simply be the only way we will ever find a way out of the mess we have created here on spaceship Earth.