As your children grow up, and then as grandchildren start popping out, some traditions keep going, some have to change.
We all develop traditions in our families, those various customs and beliefs that we follow and pass on - some lasting for generations, some for a few years. Some of these relate more to a specific date, like Christmas or Thanksgiving, some relate more to a function, like an annual trip to a cottage, but the strongest seem to relate to both.
My family had our own traditions related to Christmas. Being Catholic, there was the mandatory Christmas Eve tradition of Midnight Mass. If we were up north for Christmas, in Kirkland Lake, we went with my grandparents to their church, the French Catholic one. It was the biggest one in town of course, high up on a rocky hill. We got a sermon in French and, back then, the rest of the Mass in Latin. Since I understood neither, and was never very religious, it was a pretty dull tradition for me. But it was important to my grandparents, and to God, so we went for their sake. n my late teens, after my grandmother died, my mother, "Uncle" Ted, and I started a new tradition - the Christmas Eve Moose Milk. That replaced the Midnight Mass, as we lacked both the motivation and the coordination to venture out. We also had Christmas stockings as kids, filled with trinkets and fruit, I assume had a pile of presents under the tree, and I seem to remember the all-you-can-eat Christmas Day dinner. Strange that I remember a lot of little moments from growing up, but nothing really about Christmas. I don't think it's anything like repressing memories - the Christmas of the fire, the year of the axe incident, the year we moved to Bolivia - none of those things happened. I think we just had regular everyday somewhat low key traditions. Other than the Memories of Moose Milk (sounds like an obscure Northern Ontario Presidents Choice recipe).