Traditions are important ways to connect and build families—however they can become counterproductive and destructive if we don’t know how to adapt them for our circumstances. Traditions are living things—they need to grow and evolve with us. This podcast shares three ways we can adapt traditions based on our stage of life and on where we live.
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Traditions are important ways to connect and build families—however they can become counterproductive and destructive if we don’t know how to adapt them for our circumstances. Traditions are living things—they need to grow and evolve with us. This podcast shares three ways we can adapt traditions based on our stage of life and on where we live.
Free Coaching Session
Sign-up for a free coaching session.
Schedule
One-Minute Wisdom
Each week I carefully craft a short perspective shift or tool that you can read in about a minute. You can sign up here.
Follow me on Instagram: @theexpatmomcoach or on Facebook: @theexpatmomcoach
Ep. 72. How to Change Traditions to Work in New Places or Stages of Life
I hope you are enjoying the holiday season—even if it looks a bit different than in past years because of COVID, or because of living in a new place, or because you’re not with family due to travel restrictions or because of loss or any other reason.
Our family was excited to spend the holidays with family for the first time in a long time! We thought we were going to be enjoying dinners and activities with extended family, and traveling to a fun place with lights and Christmas shows a few hours away. But then the Omicron variant exploded and we realized that we might need to cancel our travel plans, and cut out some of our plans to go to busy public places. We had to “pivot” and change plans. I love the word pivot; it makes me think of my days as a tap dancer when we would be heading one direction, and the teacher would call out to pivot. Holding both of the balls of our feet in place, we would lift our heels and turn our entire bodies the exact opposite direction and continue dancing. And that is exactly what we had to do this holiday season…multiple times.
Our kids were really disappointed. Still though, we looked forward to time at home with extended family. We had decided on a calendar for activities and meals, and some of our family had flown across the country. However right before Christmas, someone in the extended family tested positive for COVID. Instead of all being together, all the different family units were in separate hotel rooms and homes. Again, we pivoted. Instead, we we regrouped and made some fun plans for our immediate family to do Christmas cookies, and have a fancy dinner for Christmas and do a bake off (since my kids love baking) etc. Then, our oven and stove went out…completely out. It was followed the next day by the toaster. And, that ruled out cooking or baking for our family. Again, pivot.
I went to the store, and got stuff for a Shepherd’s dinner (pita and hummus and veggies that we wouldn’t have to cook). I got pizza kits that we could cook in the microwave. I got lots of stuff for cold cereal and sandwiches. We were getting excited to figure out how to start a fire in our fireplace and do s’mores instead of our traditional trifle—which requires baking of brownies. Then our landlord graciously paid extra so we could get an oven & stove on Christmas Eve. We were actually able to do some of our baking.
In then end, we had a wonderful holiday together—just our family. It was different than we expected…but still good. We were able to FaceTime with family and enjoy playing games together, decorating gingerbread houses, doing a shepherd’s dinner as well as our traditional trifle. We acted out the nativity and had a wonderful time on Christmas morning opening gifts. We had to change some our plans and our traditions…but we still had a wonderful time.
In the last podcast we talked about the benefits of traditions and power they have for bonding our families, connecting us to other generations, helping us feel identity, sense of belonging and passing along values. In short, traditions are important. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to it check out episode #71.
However, knowing how to pivot with our traditions is essential to making sure they accomplish their intended purpose. Traditions can become weapons that can destroy our holidays and our enjoyment if aren’t careful. If we wed ourselves too completely to them, it can feel devastating when we can’t or don’t do them. If our family felt we couldn’t enjoy Christmas without all of our traditions—we wouldn’t have been in a tough space with COVID, and no oven. In addition, choosing too many traditions or traditions that are too extensive can become overwhelming and exhausting. For example, we can become so fixated on making sure we make the perfect meal for Christmas that we miss out on spending time with our kids all afternoon. The whole point of the meal was to enjoy time together, and we missed out on it while trying to create something else. Traditions also need to grow and evolve and change to continue to serve their purpose. What worked when kids were young, might not work when they are teens. And, what worked in one country—might not work in another. If we aren’t careful instead of traditions serving us…we can begin to serve traditions.
Today on the podcast we’re going to talk about how to pivot with traditions and how to adapt and evolve them as necessary.
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I want to offer 3 ideas for learning to adapt and evolve traditions when situations or stages change.”
1. Cut out what's not working
Age and Stage:
When you start to notice emotions like resistance, overwhelm, frustration or dread around a particular tradition, it might be a good idea to re-examine if it’s still working. Hopefully you can go back to your purpose like we talked about in the last podcast. If the purpose is family time together or a sense of belonging—it might be wise to evaluate if that particular thing is still working for you in this phase of life. One mom shared that from the time her family had always had a fun tradition of having a “snowball fight” with cotton balls followed by a hot chocolate bar. They had it with a few families of friends and it was something they looked forward to and loved every year. But then they moved and they invited friends over and she found it just wasn’t as enjoyable and the older kids weren’t that in to it. So she made it an after school event for some of her younger kids with friends. That was a really fun event for lots of years. Then even that sort of petered out. And that was okay. Traditions are living things. They need to evolve and change over time. Eventually she just cut it out, because the whole purpose was to enjoy the spirit of the season, have something to look forward to and enjoy being with friends. This tradition wasn’t serving that purpose any more.
If a tradition is not the right fit for your family now—-it isn’t right for your family any more. Traditions serve us, not the other way around.
Place:
Sometimes as expats it may not be the age or stage of our family that changes, it may be our location that changes and that may change what works and what doesn’t.
One of my family traditions growing up was to do a ham and potato dinner on Christams Eve. But, in both China and Mexico—ham was hard to find. Even if we did find it, it wasn’t very good and it was super expensive. So, we decided we would scrap that tradition and make homemade pizza instead. The whole purpose of the tradition was to enjoy a nice dinner together and have a common food we could look forward to. Making pizzas was a great solution. We made pizzas for several years and loved it!
While in Mexico we started another tradition. The Mexicans have pinatas on Christmas. It was an old tradition started by the Spanish. They have pinatas in the shape of stars. We loved this and decided we would add this to our family’s traditions. We enjoyed it in Mexico, and in Hawaii, but when we arrived to Taiwan—pinatas were much harder to find. I went looking everywhere for a pinata—I must have gone to 4 or 5 stores and other markets. But pinatas aren’t a big thing in Taiwan. So, it was time to pivot. We let go of that tradition.
2. Change/adapt your traditions you have to work where you are/stage of life….
Sometimes it isn’t necessary to cut out a particular tradition, but it might just need to be adapted to your age and stage of life or to where you are in the world.
Age and Stage:
One couple had always had the tradition of acting out the Nativity growing up. But when they had their own Christmas with a young baby who couldn’t act and their adult parents for the holidays—acting it out didn’t seem like quite the right fit. So, instead this family found a video of the nativity story and the adults enjoyed watching the video and thinking about the story while they snuggled that beautiful baby. The purpose was to reflect on the birth of Jesus. This adaption allowed them accomplish the same purpose, but in a way that was more appropriate for the time and stage and who was there.
Place:
Sometimes it isn’t the age and stage of your family that shifts—it may be the location or availability of things that causes us to need to shift. My mother’s family used to have trifle on Christmas Eve, and this was a tradition we continued with our kids. When we were in Mexico, there wasn’t angel food cake available, so we used a yellow cake mix. It worked fine! When we were traveling in Australia one year, we used TimTams—a popular chocolate cookie in our trifle and substituted ice cream instead of pudding. In fact, the family liked it so much we decided to change our trifle recipe to include layers of brownies, ice cream, berries and cream. That has become our new favorite!
Rather than scrapping the whole tradition, we just found ways to adapt it to where we were. And in the process, we found something we liked even more.
it’s normal to feel some disappointment with the change—changing or eliminating traditions can feel a bit like a loss at times. We can look back and miss how things were before. Or, we can look forward thinking about how we want things to be in the future. The third suggestion I have for adapting and evolving traditions is to live in the now. Do things/enjoy things as they are NOW for where you are and how you are now.
3. Take Advantage of Where You Are both in your location and your stage of life
Place:
As expats we get a chance to be in unique places at the holidays. That means there may be new and interesting opportunities to learn how the local culture celebrates—or how they don’t depending on where you are in the world. One way to adapt traditions is to make it a tradition to explore the local traditions wherever you are!
In Ecuador, they have a tradition on New Years Eve of making paper mache effigies of things they don’t like or of things representing the bad of the old year and burning them. We went down to a New Years Eve celebration one year where they had made effigies of corrupt political leaders they were burning. It was really fun to learn about their traditions.
In Mexico, we attended a Posada—a tradition where families go to other family’s doors and sing. Then they are allowed to enter and have a meal together—representing Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem and looking for an Inn.
In Hawaii, we went and watched Santa come in with a bathing suit on in an outrigger canoe.
Many of my clients in Europe rave about the Christmas markets, the music and events. They often report that after being in Europe, re-patriating to their home countries is a big let down.
Take advantage of where you are. Rather than wishing things were how they have always been, include taking advantage of where you are in your traditions.
Age and Stage:
Taking advantage and enjoying where you are isn’t the only way to capitalize on the now. Taking advantage of the stage of life you are in and your current situation is equally as important.
Every age stage has enjoyable and not so great parts. The key is to find traditions and ways to enjoy the stage you’re in. Sometimes this might mean adding new traditions. Sometimes it might mean cutting out or adapting traditions. And sometimes it means keeping things the same on the outside, but changing the way we choose to think about and experience them so you can capitalize on where you are in life. Sometimes this can be as simple as shifting our expectations and our attention to the now instead of to the past or the present. It’s easy to find ourselves pining away for past situations or stages of life, or looking forward to future situations. But either of these things robs us of actually enjoying the good of now.
One way to bring yourself into the present, is to notice sensory experiences. Notice the sounds, the smells, tastes, the emotions. Notice how your spouse’s hand feels in yours, notice how your child’s cheek feels against yours. Listen to the way your children’s voices pronounce things, savor the traditional food you chose. Focusing on sensory things can help us be more present.
Another simple way to be more present is to write down wonderful moments each night. The brain naturally likes to find the negative. And, that means it is likely to compare the now to the past or the future and find all the problems. But if you put your mind to work looking for the good—it will find that also. Record a wonderful moment singing a Christmas carol in the car together or a moment you saw your child pay some of their own money for a sibling, or the wonderful smell of pine as you entered your home. While lots of the day might have been hard, looking for the good can help us actually enjoy the present wherever we are and whoever we are with.
One couple always enjoyed having a large family gathering for Christmas Eve, but as their children grew and had their own families, they found they were alone on a particular Christmas Eve. It was easy to look back and pine a bit for the years of busy excitement and anticipation with children running around and happy chatter around the table. Or, to look forward thinking about other years when their children and grandchildren might be there.
But, the truth was they had each other. They had a wonderful calm and peaceful evening to celebrate and enjoy. They might want to enjoy inviting another couple over and enjoying conversation un-interrupted by small children. They might focus on the gourmet flavors and the feeling of friendship of the evening. Or they might want to enjoy attending a midnight church celebration without worrying about children needing to get to bed or needing to wrap presents late at night. They might enjoy the beautiful harmonies and reflect on the words and messages of the songs. They could relish the feeling of being rested and the chance to sleep in!
In contrast another family with lots of young children found themselves frustrated and exhausted trying to deliver treats to friends with cold, crying children, and coming back to open gifts while the kids fought over who was first. Then, the parents had to stay up late wrapping gifts only to be awakened early in the morning. For all the joy and excitement the parents were exhausted and found themselves looking forward to a time when the kids were a little older and not quite so demanding. Or, looking back to a few years earlier when it was just a little baby and toddler.
But the truth was, they had a magical stage of young children who were filled with wonder about Christmas and presents and every little candy cane or story! They might enjoy the moment captured with all the kids in pajamas in front of the Christmas tree, the sense of wonder in the eyes of a young child seeing Christmas morning, the sense of bonding as a couple wrapping presents late at night, the excited squeals at looking in a stocking, the chance to snuggle up and read with their children. Reflecting and being mindful of the good doesn’t mean you ignore the hard—it simply allows you to enjoy the now good AND bad, rather than mainly focusing on the bad.
Summary
Let’s quickly recap what we discussed; If you find that you are feeling a bit discouraged, or overwhelmed, or lonely or frustrated around your traditions, it might be time to cut out, adapt or shift your focus around them. In other words—it might be time to pivot and change directions. Traditions are a powerful grounding force, but they can drag us down with them if we don’t treat them like a living thing that grows and evolves. We talked about 3 important ways to pivot with traditions.
1. Cut out what’s not working: if a tradition isn’t working with the age and stage of your children, or it isn’t working with where you live in the world….consider cutting it out.
2. Sometimes we don’t need to cut something out, we simply need to adapt it. We might consider the purpose of what we’re doing and see what works better for the stage of our family or the place where we live.
3. Sometimes rather than wedding ourselves to traditions, we may want to really enjoy where we are at…get out and enjoy the local culture. Enjoying the now can also mean not changing tradition but changing our mindset and focus within it. It can include choosing to deliberately notice and relish sensory moments and small good things even in the midst of the hard.
Expat Exit Strategy:
What traditions do I find myself dreading, or feeling overwhelmed or frustrated by?
What traditions don’t work with my family at this age and stage or where we live in the world?
Is there something I can do to adapt or change the tradition in order to accomplish the same purpose?
How can I adjust my focus so I can enjoy the good parts of where I am now and who I’m with now.
Coaching
I would love help you navigate family traditions, or coach you on any other topic. You can sign up for a free full length coaching session in the show notes on my website at The Expat mom.com. I decided to phase out the mini-coaching session in leiu of a free full length session so we have time to really help you tackle an issue. :)
Also, if you aren’t ready for coaching, but would love more quick insights, I offer a free resource for moms to help them improve the emotional health of their children. Every week I distill down an important tool, tip or perspective from the podcast—I craft it so it can be read in about one minute. This offers a quick idea to apply with your family that week to improve their emotional health. You can sign up through the link in the show notes or on my website at the expat mom. com.
Happy New Year!