Twice is a Tradition in America

My immediate family is small and we are all eccentric. Fortunately, for us at least, we can get our eccentricities to align periodically. When we sit around a table, we talk and laugh and talk in a rapid fire multilayered conversation that might include snips of song lyrics and, on occasion, a dance step or two to punctuate a story or provide a non verbal punch line.

That love of word-song-dance sharing has been a constant over many years and many translocations and dislocations. We have outgrown any family traditions and now we blend youthful iconclasm with middle aged nostalgia. In the midst of all this, we decide that in America where everything seems so new in contrast with Scotland, twice is a tradition.

So tonight we'll celebrate our new old Christmas tradition and after a little gift giving we'll go to a favorite steakhouse for a shared meal. My husband and I will have a dance or two and we will all have much laughing-talking-joking-and perhaps a song or two.

Sunday my husband and I will take a train north to celebrate with my daughter and we'll invent another tradition or two as needed.

Wherever you are and whatever your traditions old or new, enjoy this time in your own way. Merry Christmas.