Merry Christmas to all our readers. Last month I wrote that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. One of the main reasons is that there is no stress over gift giving. Christmas has come to be almost inextricably ties to the act of gift giving which, at least for me, has significantly tainted this holiday.

Fortunately, Christmas for our family and friends is also strongly associated with traditions. This aspect of the holiday season always make me feel better. I’m not a big fan of tradition in general. Oftentimes, I believe tradition gets in the at of progress and I’ve seen that phenomenon play out during my military and civil service careers.

However, holiday traditions are different for me. Holiday traditions remind me of family and friends, of childhood memories and parenthood joys, of comfortable surroundings and warm feelings.

We weren’t able to honor holiday traditions this year for a variety of reasons. We chose to not honor some and our circumstances kept us from honoring others. Some were ignored because they were deemed “impractical” and others were simply impossible. But we initiated two new ones which we enjoyed with our new family member. The new traditions gave me the same feeling our old traditions provided. Traditions don’t have to be long standing. They just need to mean something… and they have to start sometime.

I hope all of you are able to honor old or new traditions today. And I hope that whatever Christmas means to you, it brings you joy and happiness beyond measure.