As I was taking the last of Thanksgiving to the trashcan, my neighbor was working hard to finish putting up their Christmas lights and decorations.  I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the holidays for our family brought my dads count down to the College Bowl schedule as a fanatic LSU fan.  It also brought my birthday, days off from school and nightly work on the live Nativity scene at church, two-a-day choir practices, and sitting around the kitchen table making homemade Christmas cards.  How important are family holiday tradition?  Family holiday traditions help define the beliefs, customs, and more important determine the extent of the family unit.  For kids from 1 to 92, traditions give us all a sense of belonging and being loved.  Burgess, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, has studied how traditions provide families a heritage of attitudes, sentiments, and ideals that he has termed family culture. 

I remember when my mother was first diagnosed with cancer and the whole family was celebrating Christmas in Pennsylvania.  We all flew home early and my dad flew back after the holidays and drove the car home alone.  But my mother never let her 15 year cancer journey become her or the family’s whole life.  My mother taught me, and I can hear her saying, “there is more to my life, than my cancer”.  Since diagnosed with prostate cancer three years ago, I wake up with her passion for life and the realization that I can make the choice each day to have more in my life, than my cancer.  I have found the holiday season has been a great time for me to engage in those activities that reinforce the family culture that has given me so much love and strength to live each day with more than just cancer.

What holiday traditions are important for you and your connection to love and life?  I’m writing this in Burlington, Vermont where we are spending a pre Christmas vacation with a good friend and his family.  Today we drove out to a tree farm and let Sophie the golden lab loose and all the kids from 7 to 80 run around and pick out the Christmas tree.  We drove home singing carols and spent the last few hours decorating the tree.  Tonight we are having a dinner party with a group of good friends and will no doubt share memories of past holidays, laugh a lot, and go to sleep tonight with smiles a mile wide and deep.

If you are like our empty nest family, our holidays are usually built around trips to families where kids rule and the spirit of the holidays aren’t just present, but LOUD.  There have been Thanksgivings and Christmases we stayed in Houston and worked as volunteers helping to feed the hungry, wrap and handout presents to the needy, or sing carols at senior living centers.  Maybe it’s a holiday cruise, or travel to Mexico, several Christmases ago we spent a wonderful two weeks in Hawaii.  My hope is while you’ve been reading about some of my holiday traditions and experiences that you have started a mental list of the holiday activities that are important to you.  Remember holiday traditions can help you strengthen your connections to family culture, love and life.  May your holiday season be full of the traditions that remind you there is more to life than  cancer.