Whatever the circumstances, many of us honestly dont know how to celebrate together. We may even see the word "tradition" as something stultifying and old, having no meaning for or application to us personally; something usually being forced upon us by someone who smells funny and is only seen on holidays. What all of this means is that we can no longer simply follow the examples of old. It is up to us to create new family traditions. Celebrating is not hard. We all know about celebrating and have some ways of doing it. The only challenge is to find new ways. Why do we need to celebrate tradition? It gives us something to look forward to and makes a formal statement that there are some things in life to be grateful for.
The notion of honoring tradition is unsettling for some people, let alone creating new ones. We understand that we need something to add a sense of order and stability to our lives. But we are not sure about how to create our own traditions. We seem to think that traditions must be heavy and complex ideas that had been around for hundreds of years and will be around for a hundred more. In my opinion, this is not true. It need not be big or religious at all. I believe a tradition is something that you do once that feels good, so you do it again and again.
The tale in Frost's "Mending Wall" can be viewed as an impromptu