The Question of Tradition

It’s Easter Friday 2020 as I’m writing this. I’m stuck in lock down in Sydney with my sister due to Covid-19 and I just started 2 weeks’ leave because I was supposed to be going home today, to Zimbabwe, for 2 weeks.

No one in my immediate family is religious. Danes are traditionally quite Christian, but it seems to me that for most of them it’s more part of their culture than devout Christianity. None of my cousins in Denmark are religious, but they all still go through confirmation, and in fact their confirmation ceremony is like their equivalent of ‘my super sweet sixteen.’ Even my dad went through confirmation when he was young – it makes me laugh to think of him doing those classes. My mum isn’t religious, and neither of her parents are, either. I would say my great grandmother on that side was pretty Catholic, but for some reason it didn’t filter down to my grandmother. Maybe she saw too much in her life to remain a believer – I’ll ask her next time we are having a chat.

Nevertheless, we all still celebrate Easter and Christmas, and it doesn’t feel right when we aren’t together as a family when these holidays come around. I know my mum is devastated that she can’t be there to have breakfast with us on that day and give us some Easter Eggs. But why do we celebrate these religious holidays, and not others? Why not Holi or Diwali? Passover or Thanksgiving? Who decided that the dominant religious public holidays, in almost every country in the world, would be those of Christianity, and why do we, non-believers, still participate in them? I suppose it’s because we still want a time where we can all be together, sharing a meal and gifts and being able to relax because we have a public holiday – although on a farm, you never really stop working for a full day, anyway.

People ask quite often what our family does at Christmas. When I tell them we usually have a salmon for lunch, and not a roast, many eyebrows are raised, and more questions asked. “Why wouldn’t you have a ham?” For most white Zimbabweans, Christmas meals in Zimbabwe are traditionally very British – passed down from the colonial Rhodesians – I suspect it’s the same in most old British colonies. Christmas day in Zimbabwe falls on one of the hottest days of the year – to us it makes perfect sense to have a salmon rather than a heavy meal of ham and gravy and roast potatoes. Where did the idea of salmon come from? I think it’s just what we all wanted to have, so we had it, and it became our own tradition, although we don’t stick to it every single time.

Sometimes, though, I know my sister and I quite like the idea of a bit more of a defined culture. We spent Christmas in Denmark a few years ago with all of our Danish cousins, and the way they kept up their preparations and traditions was really quite wonderful. We did special dances around the house, had particular meals and snacks reserved for Christmas, and the trees and houses were decorated tastefully with traditional Danish decorations, all gold and red and silver and white – nothing bright and plastic and garish. On boxing day, we attended a lunch of all the Kirk family in Denmark – nearly 60 people at the original family farm. Some members of the family stood up and told stories, some gave a speech – I was asked to sing, and we all had Danish hymnbooks and sang Christmas hymns at set times during the meal.

On the other hand, Christmas with my mother’s family is the opposite – in the past we spent it at our grandparents’ beach houses; one year we spent it in Thailand. This year, my parents couldn’t join us in Australia so Marlee and I spent it with Mum’s family at a caravan park 5 hours north of Sydney. It did not feel like ‘Christmas’ at all. Easter doesn’t feel like ‘Easter’ this year, either. What is that feeling? Why is it so defined for some, and so ambiguous for others, yet we all still feel it? Why did my family’s holiday celebrations become so mixed up, rather than veering the way of one parent or the other? When my dad’s parents still lived in Zim, we used to have a very traditional Christmas with them – Farfar (grandfather) would kill one of his geese; we would eat the Christmas rice pudding with the whole almond in it so we could win the marzipan pig, and we opened our presents on Christmas Eve, not Christmas morning. When they left, however, we never followed those traditions every again, and nobody really gave it a second thought.

I’ve observed strong culture and traditions in every country in the world, amongst many types of people and for a multitude of reasons – from pheasant shooting in the UK to Mardi Gras in Sydney and the Chinese moon festival and Lunar new year. However, I have come to realise that my family and I don’t have any traditions that have stuck with me for more than a few years – and it doesn’t really bother us. We like to observe culture and learn about other peoples’ ways, but we have never felt the need to ingrain anything like that in ourselves and our lives. Perhaps this makes us freer to experience different things all year round – we aren’t bound to stay in one place for one particular holiday and so we can spend it wherever we want and doing whatever we please.

Will this splicing and dissolving of cultures and traditions grow as the people of the world become increasingly intertwined? Or will new traditions be born from mergers and imagination? I don’t know, and it doesn’t bother me too much – what about you?

Christmas Dog

What's your Christmas outfit?

Traditional Santa hat?