Cookies, Tradition, and why I like going to church

As I type this cookies are baking in the oven. Which is strange in itself, cause I cook, I don't bake. But here I am baking cookies, Chocolate Chip ones. Mmm. While I was making them, mixing the ingredients and thinking about who to send them to, and then started thinking about a few things.

I REALLY like eating cookie dough. Mostly cause I like butter but am too repulsed to eat it straight... but cover it in brown and white sugar and add some vanilla... I am liable to eat it all.

I was reminded that my bestie makes cookies all the time. She tastes the ingredients as she goes along and can tell how the product will turn out by the mini taste tests along the way. I like this method!

Throughout the year at random times my Bestie will bake with her family, usually kinda random (in my mind) but one thing is FOR SURE, when Christmas times comes around they will be making cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. Its their tradition. Somewhere along the way I became part of the tradition. Not that I go to the house and make cookies with them (I'll have to do that someday!) but I am a recipient of said cookies. I eat them over a long span of time. Making them last as long as I can. I share only when I am caught eating them and then only out of common courtesy, not cause I am stoaked about sharing MY cookies. I digress...

So then I started thinking about family traditions with my family. We play this game, Christmas Eve Gift. I think I blogged about it before... But its not as nice as it sounds... We get into this game. The basic idea is on Christmas Eve, when you see or talk to anyone in the family- the first person who says "Christmas Eve Gift" to the other member wins. The loser has to get the winner a Christmas Eve gift. Now some quirks to the game is that there unwritten rules... Not that there are ANY rules actually written... but... You can begin play as soon as the clock strikes 12. When in confusion about who said it first, its whoever says it second, or loudest or whoever gives in and accepts defeat etc... and the kicker... in all the years that I have played this game, I have won countless times (Im pretty stealth) and have only actually received a gift twice. Once from my Uncle, who game me 2 pieces of candy and a pencil, and my Papa who gave my a candy bar... it was a King Size and everything.

But the game wasn't about the presents, or lack there of, it was about the tradition. We play this every year. We call each other from different states, different time zones. Maybe it is about winning all the little matches between members, maybe just a way to connect during the holidays.

Random thought, Christmas Eve is also my sisters birthday, but we showed no mercy. I wonder if anyone in the family has ever said "Happy Birthday" before we screamed "Christmas Eve Gift" waking her from a dead sleep....

All this thought of tradition got me to thinking. Whats the big deal? Why do we care SO much about traditions? Why do I kind of like it when I get a call at 2 in the morning from a family member screaming 3 words at me? Why do I savor the cookies so much? (Besides the fact that they are AMAZING?) Why do I care if people call me on my birthday? Or on a different note, why do I like traditional hymns so much? What is the appeal of the church in the traditional context? Why do we observe the 4th of July?

What makes tradition so appealing? The more I though through it the more personal it became. I like tradition because it makes me apart of something bigger than myself. To have tradition means to have community. And we were created for community! Tradition without community is merely habit. I like being apart of traditions because it makes me feel more connected and alive to the people around me. It tightens the bond, lessens the gap of distance and time.

I can sing Amazing Grace join the choir of thousands who have sang it over the past hundred years. I can eat a cookie and feel the love of a family hundred miles away. I can speak words to a family member I haven't seen in years. This is my community, my tradition.

But how do they start? My husband and I were very excited about coming up with traditions. We would start with our first year and do all this crazy stuff that we would teach our kids and hold to for our whole life.... and then life happened. Ideas we had before were thrown out the window. I worked a 12 hour day on Thanksgiving and on Christmas I was throwing up. I was in a different country for July 4th, Easter was bitter sweet. It was a rough year. But we did it together. We succeeded in making a tradition. Our tradition: Be together. Its my favorite one.

Something I find interesting is that so much of our culture is very interested in breaking traditions. Non-traditional. We pride ourselves on it. For many good reasons, but then again, for maybe some poorly thought out reasons. When it comes to church, there has to be some elements of tradition. I think the parts I like most about church are the traditional parts. Communion, Fellowship, hymns etc.

I never would have thought I would say this, but I like traditions.

Thoughts?