Re-traditioning: The First Newspaper Column

_{Editor's note: I first coined "re-traditioning" to mean the family-tradition second cousin to "redecorating" in 2001, when I talked about my family's move to Northern California in a regular newspaper column I wrote at the time for The Contra Costa Sun (Lafayette, CA):}

Re-traditioning: When Traditions Have to Change
by Robin Schoettler Fox
First published: The Contra Costa Sun, 11/21/01

When we moved from Southern California to Lafayette two years ago, there wasn’t enough room in the United Van Lines truck for everything we wanted to take with us. We had to leave some of our Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions behind.

Sure, the packers boxed ornaments, felt stockings, and twinkle lights. They wrapped Christmas tree shaped candleholders in newsprint and folded red linens into cardboard containers. They even packed my mother’s sweet potato pie recipe.

But the movers had to draw the line somewhere. And they did – right at the front door to Aunt Caroline’s house in Huntington Harbor, the place where I’d celebrated 12 Thanksgivings since my move to Southern California in 1986.

No matter how hard we pushed and pulled, we couldn’t get Aunt Caroline’s house up the ramp and onto the truck. Nor would her deck, where we shivered each December as the holiday boat parade floated by, budge.

The packers didn’t have a crate big enough to hold all those people on the Manhattan Beach Strand singing, “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.” Ditto for the fireworks that followed the final chorus of “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

The corporate relocation package didn’t even cover our Santa. Sitting in a sleigh perched on a trailed hitched to a truck, this Santa (sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce) and his police escort cruise Manhattan Beach neighborhoods, stopping wherever the elves spot kids waiting to trade wishes for mini-candy canes.

I didn’t even tell our United Van Lines service rep about the annual 33rd Street caroling party. By then, I knew what she would say.

The movers loaded the truck and headed north. One week later, on a Friday in mid-November, they carried box after box into our house in Burton Valley.

That year, for the first time in my life, I was in charge of Thanksgiving dinner. Let me just say that, as easy as it is cook a turkey breast, it’s just as easy to undercook one. Staring at the mashed potatoes, stuffing, and steamed broccoli on my plate, I thought about the weeks ahead.

Forget that the house lacked curtains and rugs. Who cared that the family room had no couch? Priority one was to re-tradition, not redecorate. We needed new activities that might, in time, become family traditions.

That first December, it was the children’s Christmas choir and pageant at St. Monica’s in Moraga.

Last year, my friend Lorraine and I organized a cul-de-sac caroling night. Long on enthusiasm and short on singers, we confidently called it the “first annual” and declared it a building year.

And, on the first Sunday in December, our family gathered with more than 400 people in the Diablo Foods parking lot for the Community Holiday Music and Tree Lighting. Stanley Middle School musicians, the Big Band of Rossmoor, and other local music makers performed holiday tunes. Then, someone handed out song sheets.

Sitting on the asphalt parking lot under the glow of one of the bands’ heat lamps, my youngest son snoozing in my lap, I smiled as I sang. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Okay, so there weren’t any fireworks bursting over the Pacific Ocean. The music sounded great, the Bickerstaff tree looked festive, and there was plenty of free hot chocolate.

Best of all, someone announced that it was the first-ever Community Holiday Music and Tree Lighting.

Right away, I knew – my family wasn’t the only one doing a little re-traditioning. At the very least, each of those people in the parking lot that night was making room for one new way to celebrate the holiday season.

This year, my family is continuing our Lamorinda holiday traditions. All three of my sons will have parts in St. Monica’s Christmas pageant. Lorraine and I are recruiting more singers for the caroling night. And I’ve marked my calendar for Dec. 2, the night of the second annual Community Holiday Music and Tree Lighting.

Plus, I’m still looking for more traditions-to-be. If you have any ideas, let me know. Don’t bother with tips for cooking the Thanksgiving turkey, though. Aunt Carolina is in charge of the bird this year. My job is to pack, load the family into the station wagon, and head south.

It’s a new twist on an old Thanksgiving tradition.

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