So for the past few years now, I’ve been trying to create Family Traditions here at the Childsplayx2 household. The problem is, we’re not very creative. And I KNOW just someone out there has some kick butt family tradition that they’re ready to share. So, every year – especially around the holidays – I contact a few of my fellow bloggers and ask them to share something that they do that will be with them for a long time. In essence, I hope to steal some good stuff here. Of course, many who I do contact scream, “What?! Family Traditions?! Me?!” But others jump in and share. And so it is with Whit from Honea Express. He has agreed to step away from his plethora of paying gigs to hand down a little wisdom here. Enjoy.

Tradition is a funny thing. In theory it has been set and is practiced as such, but the reality of the matter is that nothing is constant and even the way we do things on a regular basis is slowly evolving.

That’s my take anyway.

When I was a kid there was never any doubt as to how we would spend the holidays. We knew where we would be, when we’d be there and who would be joining us. It was Christmas by rote.

Yet, even then it was tweaked- babies were born, relationships ended, people moved, people died. Suddenly I’m an adult with children of my own and living in a different state than the traditions I left behind. And still they continue.

This year I’m taking my children back there. We will enter a machine that has been running for nearly 40 years and while the gears have kept turning our arrival will add much needed grease to the wheel.

Is this our tradition now, a moveable feast? Are we set to wander like so many Yuletide gypsies? Perhaps. It is too soon to tell. Ours is still forming and the only constant that we’ve carried thus far, besides brown paper packages tied up with string, is the happiness of two small boys and the love they spread wherever they go.

Tradition is a funny thing. We’re only making ours now.

So far, so good.