Have Yourself a Matrix Little Christmas

I'm not sure when it started.  Or why.   


But, at some point along my Personal Beliefs Timeline, some very serious rants against the practice of mindlessly following long-held traditions began popping up like waving flags at a K'naan concert.  And these weren't just rants going off in the fogginess of my own mind.  Literal proclamations of judgment spewed forth from me, freely and unsolicited, in the presence of others with the precision of a courtroom gavel.


Despite my Degree in Biblical Studies and once being married to a minister (or perhaps because of those things), many of my rants were aimed at questionable religious traditions.  Funeral services that included a message of hell-fire and brimstone for the vulnerable, captive audience of mourners warranted an equally fiery rant for the whole car ride home...no matter how far that car trip home happened to be.


I rationalized that following a tradition without question, was due to an overactive need for consolation.  An adult version of a self-soothing pacifier.  I thought that, as truly high-functioning adults, we should be able to look into the eyes of darkness, feel the discomfort of it and not have to anesthetize ourselves to it with a soother of ritual habit.


Post religious degree and ex-partner, I have now created a very fulfilling life that is a far cry from my oft-evangelical, fundamentalist, tradition-filled roots and education.  I do yoga (gasp!), meditate, question most things, spell truth with a small 't' and believe that god is spelled k-i-n-d-n-e-s-s.  But being a little off-centre is never more evident than in this season that is filled with and built on tradition.  


Last night, I spent a wonderful evening with my sons and we laughed at how 'non-traditional' our family is.   Since the boys were to be on an airplane to visit their father early Christmas morning, we created a new (possibly for this year only) tradition and have our family time on Christmas Eve.   


Some things we did were similar to regular families, I guess, as we opened our gifts to each other, ate  delicious treats and caught up on each others lives.  But we veered significantly off-course when one son put a picture of his friend wearing her hijab on our our pile of gifts and claimed that we had a Muslim Christmas Tree.  Then we watched the Christmas episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (as opposed to The Grinch or Die Hard) and engaged in a role-playing, drinking card game and this certainly must have put us in some sort of category of white-trash crazy.  


But, as I sat watching my boys playing the role-playing game, I smiled deeply from the inside out.  One was wearing a bow-tie and the other a camouflage Elmer Fudd hat.  They couldn't be more different if I had submitted a genetic wish list.  But there we were.  Three joyous oddnicks enjoying an even odder evening of celebration.  We laughed.  Till our faces and bellies hurt.  We kept putting off bedtime even though we were all aware of the early flight.


The next morning, as the boys packed, primped (well, the one in the bow-tie was the only one primping) and yawned themselves awake, ate warm cinnamon buns out of the oven, they talked about the trip before them.  I listened with interest as they confirmed with each other that one of them had the movie, The Matrix, downloaded on one of their laptops.  I asked why.  They said, “it's our tradition”.  


Apparently, the first post-divorce, Christmas airplane ride 6 years ago involved watching the movie together, side by side in their plane seats, so, out of a need for continuity, sameness, or just making sense out of a new way of life, my boys created a tradition for themselves.   For comfort.  For consolation.  For the time when they needed that.  


Could it be that all traditions aren't evil incarnations of thoughtless people who are stuck in their adolescent phase of belief?  Or can we create flexible traditions that console and nourish at the same time?  


Who knows?  All I know is that my life, my loves, my boys, my viewpoint are all basically non-traditional but also magnanimous enough to include the occasional tradition.   


“Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony”.  Matrix makes Christmas merrier.  Who knew?