In the midst of the holiday season, with all the demands the real estate business makes on their time, folks at The Trembley Group Real Estate always make time to spend with their families. It gives them time to reflect on memories and traditions from their past, and at the same time, the opportunity to create new memories and traditions. Holiday traditions are an important way The Trembley Group Real Estate Professionals celebrate Christmas and the Christmas traditions are essential to bringing families together.
The great thing about The Trembley Group Real Estate family traditions is that there are as many variations of them as there are Trembley Group Professionals. Even the smallest things such as baking cookies together are valued traditions. The littlest things such as eating sprinkle cookies, Christmas Eve church services, or cutting down a Christmas tree have become traditions that in some instances have been passed down for generations.
Traditions can be big or small, old or new, but they differ from routines and habits in that they are done with a specific purpose in mind. They require thought and intentionality. Christmas traditions, when done right, lend a certain magic, spirit, and texture to an everyday holiday celebration.
Family Christmas traditions and rituals provide comfort and security to children. They connect generations. When asked what they remember most about their childhood, most folks talk about simple holiday traditions like family dinners, visiting extended family, and bedtime stories. The Trembley Group Real Estate Sales Professional Joey Sewell loves to tell of his childhood family reading the Biblical manger story every Christmas Eve. Joey continues the tradition today with his own children.
Traditions Add to the Rhythm & Seasonality of Life
Our world and universe are composed of cycles big and small – sunrise and sunset, death and rebirth, winter, spring, summer, and fall. Even the generations move in cycles. A circular conception of time and a desire to follow the natural rhythm of the days and the seasons is embedded deep within us but has been flattened out in a modern age that creates its own timetable and concentrates only on the present.
Traditions Provide a Source of Identity
Family traditions are so important because they’re a reminder of everything a family is about, where they originated, where they are going, and how families all come together as one. Family traditions and rituals often tell a story about a family. They can serve as reminders of events that have shaped a family. They’re a reminder that family traditions have grown as their families have grown and that family is the greatest gift that anyone could ever be given.
Christmas traditions are all about children and they tell stories they tell about a family. They play an important role in shaping a child’s personal identity. Children who have an intimate knowledge of their family’s history are typically more well-adjusted and self-confident than children who don’t.
Family Traditions Teach Family Values
Practiced rituals and traditions help instill family values. Traditions supply comfort and a sense of security. It’s comforting to know that not everything has to change. We may lose a family member throughout the years but it’s comforting to know they live on through these traditions. Family traditions provide connectedness from generation to generation. When traditions are passed down, they connect each generation and allow the traditions to continue to live on. Traditions provide for a sense of identity for our families.
It’s amazing how family traditions are the same year after year but somehow manage to bring the family together. The way Christmas traditions evolve is important to how families evolve.
Traditions Offer Comfort & Security
Family traditions and rituals are an antidote to the hassled feeling that comes from the fast-paced and ever-changing world. They’re constants that give comfort to life.
Family Christmas traditions have changed a lot over the centuries, which isn’t such a bad thing. Folks no longer have to put a boar’s head on the dining table and eat pies made of mutton and raisins. Even within our lifetimes, popular practices of the yuletide season have come and gone.
Traditions Strengthen the Family Bond
Families that engage in frequent traditions seem to have a stronger connection and unity than families that lack established rituals together. Traditions provide an all-too-rare chance for face-to-face interaction. They help families get to know and trust each other and create bonds that can only come from being a part of something unique and special.
Traditions can thus be particularly effective during times of change and grief. The family that’s moved to a new state where everything is new and strange find a lot of comfort knowing that Christmas Eve is still pizza night and they can count on midnight mass with the family.
Those positive childhood memories can help make a child a happier and more generous adult. While some folks consider nostalgia to be a sign of depression, recent research shows that reflecting fondly on one’s past actually provides a wide range of positive benefits including counteracting loneliness, boosting generosity towards strangers, and reducing anxiety.
To get the full benefits of nostalgia, though, a well-stocked nostalgia repository is necessary. What better way to fill that repository than by creating and maintaining meaningful family Christmas traditions?
Family traditions are so important because they remind us of everything our families are about, where we originated, where we are going, and how we all come together as one. They remind us that our families’ traditions grow as our family grows and that our family is the greatest gift we could ever be given.
I grew up in a wonderful family. My father skipped golf games to take me to music lessons and family picnics. He turned down job transfers and promotions to keep me in my school. He skipped dinners with friends to watch me in a second-rate school plays or spring orchestra performances. And Christmas, more so than any other time of year, was all about my brother and me – except on Christmas Eve at 10 AM.
My father was a Welsh immigrant. He immigrated through Ellis Island at 14 in 1930 at the beginning of the Great Depression. Like many Welshmen, he had a love of music and has a wonderful singing voice. Every Christmas Eve at 10 AM, he stopped whatever he was doing and sat down with a cup of coffee next to the big old radio with shortwave as well as AM and FM bands. He’d tune into the Lessons and Carols from Kings College Chapel at Cambridge University. It’s a beautiful church service and I think it was a way my father reconnected to his Welsh family and his Welsh childhood roots. My mother knew how important the service was to my father and she made sure the house was quiet.
Today, the radio service is an important part of my Christmas. The service took my father back to Wales. It takes me back to my Welsh family of origin and makes me grateful.
Christmas traditions seem to fall into one of three categories: 1. Traditions that are newly-created by a family, 2. Traditions that were created generations ago and are passed down from generation to generation. 3. Traditions that are memories that create the overall Christmas experience. Family traditions are important, especially during the holidays because they provide for lasting memories. Although the traditions are the same each year, new memories are created every time. The memories last forever and they are always something that a family can look back on and bond over.
Though everyone is partial to their personal families traditions, we’re all a little fascinated by everyone else’s as well. Some people put up their trees on November 1, some people wait for Thanksgiving, and some even wait for Christmas Eve. Everyone eats different foods and opens presents at different times.
It’s impossible to say which traditions are the most important part about Christmas. So whether someone eats Chinese food with their neighbors or ham and potatoes with their grandparents or a six-foot Subway sandwich with just immediate family or whether they open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning at 5 AM, the most important Christmas traditions are the ones they say are most important. Here are some of the traditions that are most important to The Trembley Group Real Estate professionals.
Christmas Eve PJs
Chuck Everham is a Client Care Specialist at the Trembley Group Real Estate. One of Chuck’s favorite Christmas traditions and memories is the annual Christmas Eve gift – a new pair of PJs that must be worn on Christmas morning. Chuck says nothing brought his family closer than wearing holiday pajamas playing a family game on Christmas Eve and waking up together in them Christmas day. It’s a little memory that creates a sense of family that’s so important.
Christmas Traditions & Good Food
The Trembley Group Real Estate Professionals love to eat and many of their most valued Christmas memories and traditions involve food. One of the company’s most recent additions is client care specialist, Kat Marzola. Kat grew up in Berlin, Germany and has fond memories of traditional German Christmas Eve dinners of bratwurst, potatoes, and sauerkraut.
Sales Professional Mike Bralley remembers his mother’s gingerbread houses. He’s carried on the gingerbread house tradition, but somehow they don’t seem as good as his mom’s. Ask his daughters in a few years and they’ll likely say the gingerbread houses couldn’t have been better.
Taking a break from the Frogmore Stew, turkey, green bean casserole, and sauerkraut, Real Estate Professional, Eric Graham, and his family always celebrated Christmas Day with a six-foot Subway sandwich..
Many Christmas traditions are simple memories that bring back childhood memories and make us smile. Nancy-Paige Robinson, Director of Marketing at The Trembley Group Real Estate, recalls sweet memories of Christmas morning at 5 AM with five brothers and sisters. Gifts were categorized according to the giver (Santa or family) and the morning was strategically planned around giving her parents a break for a cup of coffee with one another. Parents with children will understand.
Joey Sewell never wants to forget why he celebrates Christmas in the first place. As a child, Joey’s family opened Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. But before any presents were opened, the Bible came off the bookshelf and his mother read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke. Joey treasures the manger story tradition and carries it forward, reading it to his own children.
Brad Emond remembers barefooted races around the house in the Indiana snow.
Bret French savors every Christmas memory from the food, the fellowship with friends, the Christmas lights, of course, his wife and children, and, it goes without saying, football. What’s not to savor?
And sometimes the best memories are the little memories, even little disasters. Jeremy Jenks, Partner, and Vice-President of Sales at The Trembley Group Real Estate is an avid outdoorsman and grew up swimming, riding ATVs, and dirt bikes. He loves to tell of giving his 3 ½-year-old a dirt bike. After plenty of training, lots of safety equipment, tons of coaching, his daughter took two dirt bike rides – her first and her last. After the crash, Jeremy’s daughter never got on another dirt bike and it was sold to be replaced with a four-wheel ATV. Jeremy says that wasn’t the first gift-disaster nor the last. The Trembley Group Real Estate Professional are already looking forward to more Jeremy-Jenks-gift-giving stories next year.
Christmas is an easy time to treat the least important things in life like the most important. Food, music, decorations, parties, and presents are all good things that create many lasting memories, but the wise person knows that a meaningful Christmas experience goes a lot deeper than all that. Christmas is a season of generosity, of love, of kindness and goodwill, of expectation, of hope. Christmas is a time of year when the whole world seems like a better place. It is tradition that unlocks the full potential of the Christmas season. It’s not about being able to remember the smells, and sights and sounds of Christmas. It’s about being able to feel the cookie dough on your hands. It’s hearing the 20-plus cousins singing the 12 Day of Christmas. It’s actually smelling Grandma’s pumpkin pies baking in the oven. It’s about the feeling you get when you close your eyes and go back to those moments. Without that tradition, it’s just a memory. But with Christmas tradition, it’s going back in time.
Need help? Call The Trembley Group at 843.945.1880 ext. 1 and we’ll help you look for the perfect listing or buyers agent!
At The Trembley Group, we pride ourselves on being the experts at more than just selling real estate. We are local residents, some of us have been here for a lifetime. The rest of us will be here until the end of time. We love living, working, and playing in the diverse backyard of Coastal Carolina, and look forward to helping you live and love your dreams soon too. Please reach out to us by phone or email for personalized service and one-on-one advice.
About our blog
Our agents write often to give you the latest insights on owning a home or property in the Myrtle Beach, SC area.
If you’re thinking of buying a new construction home, I highly recommend hiring an agent, and there are a few reasons why.