It is two days after Christmas which for you kids is mostly about getting gifts. But it is about a lot more than gifts. It is about ritual and I want to explain a bit about why rituals are important. The short answer is because they can pull you through when that's all you have left.

When I was a child the kids would all gather in my parent's basement waiting to be allowed upstairs and open presents on Christmas morning. We'd be gathered on the stairs, looking up at the door, waiting for the knob to turn. If my dad had to work that day, he was a firefighter, then the door would open before 7am. If he was just getting off work that day, then just after 8am. Once the door was opened we would rush to the living room and stare memorized at the pile of gifts. With eight kids, there were a lot of gifts. All the gifts were wrapped and my father would sit at the base of the tree and call out the name on the package and that kid would come excitedly forward to collect his bounty. We'd start out a gift at a time but invariably it would turn out to be a free for all with wrapping paper and giddy kids everywhere. With my dad being the way he is there was also an element of stress. Too messy, too much stuff, too noisy. You may recognize the same elements in your dad.

Our Christmas in Beijing follows the same pattern. It is one of the few things I insist on. Why? Let me explain a bit more. First, this ritual my dad set up by design or accident is engrained in all his kids. It is an essentially healthy and loving thing. I don't believe his dad did the same for him so be doing this he added something positive to his life, his children's live, his grandchildren's lives, and now his great grandchildren's lives. This breaking from the past by forming a healthy new is how we evolve and are not chained to the old ways. (Of course, bad habits also get passed on from generation to generation and they need to be broken and not maintained. But that is a story for another day)

The other reason, perhaps even more important in the temporal sense is rituals are something you can hang onto when you have nothing else. My brother Joe lost child this year. My dad lost his wife. Emotionally they are somewhere between numb and devastated. It is hard to get through a moment if not a day. So when my brother sat under the Christmas tree this year and handed out gifts he didn't have the same excitement as past years. My Dad, observing the gift giving now, mostly felt sorrow. But the ritual act got them through that moment and will help stich time together.

Me, I'm going through some stuff too part of which is losing my Mom. Handing out the presents, making devil eggs, and baking lasagna helped me get through the day this year. Some years the ritual is a celebration. Some years, survival.

There are a lot of rituals we go though both formal and informal. Choose yours wisely.