What Happens When Family Traditions Collide?

In our family, Thanksgiving was the end-all, be-all holiday. Born in Wyoming, I grew up in Texas and come from a rather large family. With what seemed like endless aunts, uncles, and cousins, the holiday gatherings could get quite large, sometimes reaching upwards of thirty people when friends hitched along.

Every Thanksgiving, the entire Ragan/Boyd clan would gather from the four corners of Texas and Oklahoma (things could get tense during the Red River Rivalry) and rendezvous at my grandparents' house in Texas.

Usually football would be playing on the TV, kids would be running around in the front yard, and parents and adults would be drinking coffee and talking about the state of the economy. About two hours before the Cowboys game kicked off, we would all gather in the living room to pray for our Thanksgiving meal.

Tradition in the Reagan/Boyd clan was that my grandfather, Theron, would pray for the family meal. Every prayer was the same. We would gather in a circle in the living room, hold hands and bow our heads, and my grandfather, in his gravelly voice, would utter these famous words:

“Our dear, precious, heavenly father...” 

He would then proceed to pray over each of his kids and their families, by name, and all the while, the food was getting cold, and the sugar in the sweet tea was beginning to settle at the bottom of the jar! But it never changed. Every year he would start the same way, then pray for each of us by name, and then the food.  

Until 1993, when my youngest cousin, Mandy, broke tradition. She was years behind the rest of us and, as you can imagine, pretty much ruled the house. That year, as we gathered in the circle and grabbed hands, she piped up in her small voice and asked grandpa, “Pepaw, can I pray this year?”

To say my grandfather was caught off guard would be an understatement. But never one who wanted to be seen as unprepared, he told her that, of course, she could pray. We all stood there in stunned silence. This had never happened before. What was going on? Could this even be possible? Our jaws must have been touching the floor by the time Grandpa told us to bow our heads.

Then Mandy prayed, and I quote: “Rub dub dub, thanks for the grub. Yay, God!”

My grandfather, Pepaw, was as deaf as a doornail, but somehow Mandy’s words cut through. He leaned over to my Grandmother and loudly whispered, “Never again, Dot, never again.”

Unity Over "Ideal"

While Mandy's prayer has earned a permanent place in our family's stories, it was my grandfather's whispered declaration that has stuck with me.

Early in my marriage, I tried everything I could to make Thanksgiving be the end-all, be-all for my family just like it had been for me growing up. The only problem was that my wife viewed the holidays differently than I did.

Her experience growing up was different than mine, and she brought things into that season that I hadn't thought about. This caused some tension as we tried to work through it all. I had in my mind’s eye that I would one day be the deaf grandpa, praying over Thanksgiving Dinner for my family. 

My family's tradition growing up had somehow trumped my command to love my wife as myself. I was letting my “ideal” perfect holiday ruin the life and traditions Becki and I were building together.

Jesus, in Mark 7:8, speaks to this when He says:

You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

I was guilty of this just like the Pharisees and the scribes were. I was not loving my wife and kids well in an effort to try and recreate a tradition from the past. And isn’t this true for all of us? We all have things that we hold on to. We are creatures of habit. We all have a tendency to get stuck in a rut and keep doing the same thing over and over again. Even if it hurts.

Courage Over Fear

The reality is that sometimes the pain of what we know is less scary than the fear of what might be. It is easier to stay in the “known” than to step into the fear of the unknown.

What might be lingering in your past that is impacting your present? Or even more to the point, what things are you holding onto that you need to let go of? Maybe there is something you’ve been doing over and over again simply because that’s the way you do it, but you know it's not healthy or life-giving for you. Maybe, just maybe, you need to lean over and whisper “Never again.”