Traditions

Every night my father used to check the weather barometer to see what the weather was going to be the next day. He would tap it three times, and I can still hear him doing it. I have inherited the barometer, and I find myself doing the same thing every night - tap, tap, tap. It sits on the same place on my bookcase -- the same place it sat when I was a child -- and if you look closely, you can see the grooves in the wood where the legs of the barometer sit. Of course, in Vancouver it's fairly easy to tell what the weather is going to be. If the skies are dark and cloudy, and there is water falling from the sky, it's a typical rainy day. If the skies are blue and there is a strange yellow orb shining, it is an -- unusual -- sunny day. In Vancouver it is either raining, it has just rained, or it is about to rain. But every night, I still tap the barometer before I go to bed.

I wonder how many of us have, either consciously or unconsciously, picked up some of the habits of our parents. Are we even aware we are doing them? How many times have we said something to our children and then said, "Omigawd, I have turned into my mother!"

Our parents often pass on to us family traditions, customs, superstitions and other habits, and we pass them on to our children, sometimes without even being aware we are doing it. I will often see the Munchkins doing something, and I'll think, "Hmmmm, where have I seen that before?" Sometimes when I look quickly out of the corner of my eye, I can see my father in Phinnaeus -- just for a fleeting moment. And Marigold has inherited a huge amount of my mother's DNA, including her straight dark hair and feistiness. Every Christmas my daughter makes "Gambie's" Christmas pudding, complete with her "special" hot buttered rum sauce, and it simply would not be Christmas without it. Every year my brother says, "Oh, I had better not...." and then he has a big helping, because it is something he has loved since he was a little boy. It's as if a part of my mother is still with us, and it's times like those when we really can feel the spirits of our parents and grandparents. I know the Munchkins will carry on many of those traditions as well.

It's the little, everyday things that connect us the most with our childhoods -- such as tapping on the barometer every night. I think my Dad would get a kick out of that. How about you? What customs and traditions do your find yourself continuing?