Reflection on Christmas traditions

For as long as I can remember Christmas has been a loud and busy affair. My mum's extended family, all my aunts, uncles, cousins and their children numbering about forty people in total, would gather at Mum & Dad's for a trestle table laden feast.

About two years ago we had our first "small" Christmas. It was just my parents, my sister and my family. Everyone else loved small Christmas; less noise, less outlay, less cleaning up, less strained conversations, less social niceties needed.

Only, it just didn't feel like Christmas to me anymore. It was too quiet by far and the people that made it Christmas to me weren't there.

For the past two years I have felt sad after Christmas. I would go so far as to say I was left feeling like I was still waiting for it. Would small Christmas ever be enough?

This year I still missed big Christmas but I realised something important. Christmas is ultimately about traditions. We find comfort in doing the same thing year on year. It has a familiarity that brings warmth to the soul, like a familiar neural pathway. What I realised is that small Christmas is not yet a tradition. For the longest time big Christmas has been what Christmas meant. It would take a few Christmases to establish small Christmas as "what we do at Christmas". It didn't have to be inferior but it was different and different isn't tradition - but it can become it over time.

So, one day small Christmas will be "what we do at Christmas" and even the smallness and quietness will feel familiar and comforting. In the meantime I am trusting the process and sitting in the strangeness, a good lesson for life.