I’m not sure when it dawned on me that traditions have to start somewhere. Probably around the same time I realised adulthood didn’t come with a secret cache of correct answers. I remember feeling genuinely betrayed by this discovery. Life, it turned out, wasn’t a maths test with one immutable solution. And before any mathematicians rush in to tell me that solutions aren’t immutable because of blah blah blah… Don’t bother, I’ve already given up on that fantasy.
But back to the point. Traditions don’t enter into the world fully formed. They start as a good idea at the time. You gather a few people, raise a glass to something worth celebrating and somewhere between the food, the laughter and the decision to do it again next month/year/season, a tradition quietly slips into existence.
Several years before I was born, my parents did exactly that. They gathered a few friends, all young parents themselves, and created a new Christmas ritual. (If they were truly committed to the bit, they might’ve waited until I arrived, but I’m not one to hold grudges.) On the Sunday before Christmas they hosted a morning gathering, because celebrations look different when small children are involved and mornings are, apparently, where the most sanity lives.
My father—never previously known for omelettes—appointed himself chief egg-flipper. He loves an appreciative audience, preferably one that can see him working so the praise can roll in unimpeded. There was always a big bowl of fruit salad for us kids, cold rotisserie chicken heaped beside soft white rolls, and a table that grew more crowded as each arriving family added their contribution. The house and verandah filled with people and noise and the kind of good cheer you don’t recognise as special until it’s gone.
Even after I’d moved out, I gladly returned each Sunday before Christmas. Eventually the champagne gave way to mimosas, then to soda water, and sometimes even to coffee. Omelettes morphed into platters of cheese, charcuterie and gravlax. Someone’s neighbour-or-second-cousin was always recruited to play Santa, announced by jingling bells and a few throaty “ho ho ho”s.
My parents are now in their 80s. The crowds have thinned, but people still appear on that Sunday morning, as reliably as ever. The kids who once demolished fruit salad now arrive with children, and in some cases grandchildren, of their own. A family tradition spanning almost 60 years isn’t something you set out to create, but it’s definitely something to marvel at.
Our newest tradition is the annual festive cookie swap. It may be just a few years old but it’s already well-loved. One Saturday in early December, half a dozen of us gather to trade batches of cookies. They can be elaborate or delightfully simple. The joy is in sharing our December baking in all its buttery, spiced, slightly chaotic glory.
In 2023, I made chewy oatmeal and sultana cookies; in 2021, it was a deluxe triple-ginger situation that demanded a very strong cup of tea. There’s always a crowd-favourite chocolate chip cookie, something iced within an inch of its life, and hopefully Jodi’s new-classic PB&J number. This year I’ve landed on a milk chocolate and pistachio cookie, no doubt influenced by the Dubai-chocolate craze sweeping the baking world.
This newer tradition might not stretch across six decades, not with me at the helm, anyway. And yet that doesn’t diminish its sweetness. Traditions don’t start because we imagine them echoing through generations. They just need a moment where someone says, “Yes, let’s do that again.”
If the cookie swap fades away someday, so be it and if it carries on without me, even better. Because that’s the funny thing about traditions: you never really know which small, ordinary pleasure will become the ritual people gather around. You just begin and let time decide what lasts.
Traditions don’t enter into the world fully formed. They start as a good idea at the time. You gather a few people, raise a glass to something worth celebrating and somewhere between the food, the laughter and the decision to do it again next month/year/season, a tradition quietly slips into…
I never used to cook a lot of seafood at home. I didn’t need to; if I wanted a delicious seafood meal, I’d just visit my parents. It took until I was in my forties to really start cooking seafood at home on a regular basis. Pan-frying the odd fillet…
Here’s to apéro hour — not a meal, not an afterthought, but a celebration of the small things done well. A drink that feels earned. A snack that sparks conversation. A reminder that joy often lives in the in-between.