An inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or social custom); the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or example from one generation to another without written instruction; cultural continuity in social attitudes and institutions.

When I think of traditions, I immediately think of family traditions—things that we do for certain events year after year. One in particular comes to mind. It was a cold and rainy Christmas Day. My mother was the first one up, already preparing the homemade cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate that we always had for breakfast. She woke me up next so I wouldn’t miss the first hour of the Christmas Parade. While watching the parade, I had the dutiful task of taking the decoration pictures. I was to go around the house and take a picture of how everything looked, from the tree all the way down to the cinnamon rolls. This year though was different. For the first time, we had two trees, one in the Family Room and one in the Formal Living Room, and our dinning room was finally complete with twenty

In “Once More to the Lake,” written by E. B. White, he explains how year after year they visit the same lake:

-three angels total on the plant shelf. After taking al the pictures, my little sister Christine was to be awaken and then coffee made for our father. After coffee was made, all of the women in his life came into the master bedroom to wake him up with the usual out of tuned sound of Joy to the World followed by a high pitched rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas. This would usually wake him up so we could all rush down to the piano and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus in our Manger by the fireplace. After singing Happy Birthday, we would then all bring out our Bibles and read Jesus’ birth. As a family, we never wanted to lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas, why we are all so blessed to be in this earth and have the opportunity to open gifts that are not warranted.

Now the true fun begins. After presents, we all race to see who can get ready for the day first. My mom usually wins, but it’s still fun to race. After we’re all ready, we make sure our homemade apple pie and veggie tray are packed and ready to go. We are now off to see the family. Our first stop is to my aunt and uncle’s house. All of my aunt’s family lives in town, so we are getting together with her family. Anyway, there we have lunch there with finger foods, nothing fancy since we all know we have other places to visit throughout the day. After lunch with my aunt and uncle and their family, my family and I were to head over to my best friend’s house, the Passarellas.

After bible reading,

Some topics in this essay:
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