My tradition is a little more sedate. I celebrate the Winter Solstice for a whole lot of reasons, but mostly because when my husband died unexpectedly 16-ish years ago, I was so unprepared and overwhelmed.
Aside from the crippling grief, I was instantly responsible for a whole lot of stuff I didn’t know much about. Living deep in the sticks wasn’t my dream, it was his. I didn’t know how to pressurize our well pump, or how to hook a trickle charger up to a battery over the winter for the lawn tractor. We had so many animals: Horse, cattle, llamas, goats, chickens, dogs and cats. I was now solely accountable for their care and feeding. My family income was slashed by two-thirds.
That stretch from mid-October until the Winter Solstice when the days started getting longer again was scary and interminable. When it finally arrived, I lit every candle in the house and cried my eyes out. With relief. I don’t know; I just understood I was somehow going to make it through.
I’m not really big into massive decorating for the holidays, but every year since, I’ve gone to a little trouble to decorate the Solstice Rake for a little cheer in the corner to mark the season:
I began the tradition of ringing the Musical Anoscope at work. When a particular patient who was exceptionally annoying/troublesome/difficult was discharged to another facility, the health care professional most impacted by said patient would ring the Musical Anoscope at the nurse’s station for all to hear.
I served the State by doing my best to empower and uplift the staff. We take such abuse from both the public and the people in our care.
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I don’t know if this counts as a tradition, but I do “Frog Facts Friday” on my social media accounts.
It’s exactly what it sounds like. Every Friday, I post a frog fact.
It started off with frog facts I already knew, but now, I usually have to go looking for new ones. Which is awesome because, of course, I get to learn new frog facts, which has become something I look forward to every week.
I switched over to octopus facts for October, though, and now there’s an ongoing discussion of what happens for November. I was just going to go back to frog facts, but there seems to be a lot of support for, say, Newt Facts November and Dragonfly Facts December. I guess I have one more week to figure it out!
No idea who started the tradition, but each year that Easter falls on a Sunday, my brother and I compete to be the first to message the other “I am risen”. The loser replies “indeed”.
Somehow my family has a tradition of giving each other Chapstick for Christmas. I mean in addition to normal presents, we don’t just get Chapstick. I think it started way back when I was in high school, and my mom thought it would be funny to put Chapstick in our stockings as a gag gift. And then it just continued every year.
For the past several years I’ve tried to take it up a level and get people fun novelty lip balms instead of just regular Chapstick. It started when I happened to notice a Rosy the Riveter themed lip balm at the checkout checkout at a record store. And then bacon flavored lip balm. And whiskey flavored lip balm. This year everyone is getting Cheerwine lip balm. It probably tastes like normal cherry lip balm, but it’s branded as Cheerwine.
Every time I cross the Mississippi River, I sing “Old Man River”. Sometimes I call up one of my brothers when I do it. I just went back to KC last weekend to visit my parents, and I friggin’ forgot on the westbound journey!
Back when I was working, I had a zen sand garden on my desk. Seeing as how I worked in I.T., over the years people brought in small plastic figurines and we built little dioramas of battles like dinosaurs versus cowboys. So one holiday season I started a nativity scene and asked people to contribute. This is what we came up with and I put it up every year until I retired. I especially like the pterodactyl as the angel.
My boyfriend and I have been on exactly 2 trips together, and both times we ended up watching a Jack Black movie in the hotel. We decided it was our vacation tradition now.
This summer he was in the hospital for a long time, and we found School of Rock on the TV so we could have a vacation.
This year will mark my 25th year as part of the AC Polar Bear Club. Once when it was so cold that most of the other towns cxl’d theirs. Twice I’ve had the opportunity to come out of the water & make snow angels on the beach in just my bathing suit…brings new meaning to the term, “snow balls”
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Sadly, I was away earlier this month & didn’t take one with me but I usually participate in Prehistoric Creatures Day & get a picture with them out somewhere that learned about right here on The Dope
We had just moved from Shanghai, where my kids were born and raised, with the eldest celebrating their 10th birthday about 2 weeks after we got to the Seattle area. Had a birthday cake with candles. I had inadvertently bought “trick” candles that relight themselves after being blown out.
My eldest, the younger twins and their Mom were speechless. Never seen nor heard of such a thing. A dozen years later, we still use trick candles on birthday cakes.
Thanks for sharing your photo!
