. . . "Caroling: Fortunately, this tradition hasn’t been completely lost. Still, it’s not common for people to march about from door to door singing Christmas songs. Most neighborhoods don’t operate that way anymore. But why not?" . . .
"In his beautiful essay “A Remaining Christmas,” author Hilaire Belloc reminds us of the importance of intergenerational traditions that surround and adorn holy days like a wreath. Christmas traditions keep us grounded in our bodily human nature, Belloc explains. “Man has a body as well as a soul, and the whole of man, soul and body, is nourished sanely by a multiplicity of observed traditional things,” he writes.
"Christmas traditions that repeat year after year offer us a glimpse of eternity, helping us transcend the changes, sufferings, and losses that occur with each passing year. “[T]here is this great quality in the unchanging practice of Holy Seasons, that it makes explicable, tolerable, and normal what is otherwise a shocking and intolerable and even in the fullest sense, abnormal thing,” Belloc writes. “I mean, the mortality of immortal men.”
"He goes on to note that all the vicissitudes and trials of every year can become part of a larger redemptive narrative when linked by traditional holy days and their celebration in the same way every year:
[A]ll the bitterness of living—become[s] … connected in the memory with holy day after holy day, year by year, binding the generations together; carrying on even in this world, as it were, the life of the dead and giving corporate substance, permanence and stability….
"Christmas traditions are about a lot more than mere sentimentality, Belloc teaches. They’re precious things, not to be thoughtlessly discarded.
" 'Unfortunately, many Christmas traditions have been lost and one must search them out, brush them off, and rebuild them. Here are seven Christmas traditions to consider bringing back this year." . . . More...
Walker Larson holds a BA in writing and an MA in English literature. Prior to becoming a writer, he taught literature and history at a private academy in Wisconsin. He is the author of two novels, Hologram and Song of Spheres. When not working on his acreage or spending time with family and friends, he blogs about literature and education on his Substack, The Hazelnut.
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