A Californian Traditionalist

I think that ritual is cool.  I also think that there is a part of our brain that responds well to it.  Our humanist family dislikes many of the messages of organized religion, so when my son was very young, idealistic mom started out to make our own rituals (and traditions.)

When my son was a baby, I would take him out every single day and we would walk through the front yard, singing a song to greet the world. (Seriously.)  That's now over, but we did it for years.  For a time there, we would light a candle when we sat down to eat.  Since we really are (I mean, let's be serious here) big nonbeliever-types, we were a bit stumped as to what type of song to sing when we sat down, so we ended up letting my son choose. He decided that we'd sing "It is time to eat dinner," sung over and over to the tune of "Happy birthday to you."  Yeah.  We do that sometimes.  What else?  Um, does toothbrushing count?

I actually tried looking to the secular humanist movement to provide focus and direction for our home rituals.  And I learned that secular humanism, with its "one trick pony approach" (e.g. no, we don't believe) is really not half as fun as all of the wacked-out belief-based things that humans have come up with through the years.  Yeah, OK, we don't believe. But gosh, look! The people down the street are all dressed up for the festival of the giant turtle!  Let's go!   Religions have spent tons of years and tons of money to develop their rituals, and some of them are pretty darn neat. 

So what's a nice, nonbelieving family to do for traditions? After careful consideration, we decided to just celebrate everything. Except Kwanzaa. With all due respect, Kwanzaa has never really resonated with me.  I'm looking forward to Holi instead - that seems like a seriously cool holiday.

As a "tooth fairy athiest" as Richard Dawkins calls it, we try to give Solstice as much credence as that large, red-clad fellow, and we also celebrate Hanukka.  I mean, why not?  Properly engaged in, rituals and traditions are shared joy. We have always had a tree (nod to pagan traditions), and in our house the tree usually has a pink flamingo on the top, which we're not going to explain.

The decorations for our holiday tree are very special.  We have a dill pickle and a bagel and a glass box of chinese food, as a nod to the Jewish side of the family.  We have many moons and suns and wizards and fairies, as a wink to the pagan side of the family.  And we have many toys, such as bicycles, red wagons, a two-inch tall teddy bear, a hedgehog (!), and so forth, as a nod to memories and playing and some of the great Christmas stores in San Francisco.

We're trying to attempt at least one new tradition every year.  This year, we participated in a St. Martin's "Lanternfest" festival, where about a hundred people made lanterns, filled them with lit candles, and dangled them from sticks while walking through the street, singing songs in German.

It's not our tradition (yet), but I think I like it.  I wonder what's next?