Tradition!

For my kids, if we have done something once and it went well and there is an opportunity to do it again, then we must – it's tradition! They come by this trait honestly, this strict observance of tradition. They are not unlike their mother in this regard.

And so, in keeping with tradition, our family went to the Corn and Apple Festival in Morden on the last Sunday of August. We have done this for six or seven years. We'd be hard pressed to say why exactly we do this, except for the fact that we have done this before. Perhaps it's because it closely approximates the county fair my husband and I experienced in the States. Perhaps we started as a way to do something outside our small community an hour west of Morden all those many years ago. And by now, perhaps it's simply because we've done this for the past number of years that we keep going back.

Here's what our family has to do in order to follow tradition: 

We must stand in the remarkably fast moving queue for free apple juice and corn-on-the-cob.

We absolutely need to eat corn dogs (the first corn dog I ever ate was at the county fair in Whitesburg, KY and so corn dogs always make me think of that place).

We must all ride the Ferris wheel together, despite the fact that it uses up 25 tickets of our limited stash.

The boys must ride the Tilt-a-Whirl and our daughter must go fishing in a pond of plastic fish opening and closing their mouths in order to win a prize of minimal value. 

We must look at all the vendor booths while my husband nurses his traditional headache, which is traditionally exacerbated by the heat and noise and crowdedness of said vendor booths. 

We must have ice cream at Dairy Queen before heading out to Colert Beach where the kids swim and my husband recovers from his malaise. If we have done all these things, we have had a successful day. Which we did.

Not everyone loves tradition as much as I do, even in my own family. I would agree that it is dangerous to be ruled solely by tradition, a distressing tendency of people who like predictability. I would, however, assert that tradition keeps alive memories and solidifies connections, particularly of family. Tradition, like ritual, transforms the ordinary into the sacred. So while we may not go the the Morden Corn and Apple Festival every summer from now till the end of our days, I'm glad we've had this little family tradition to tie us together for now.

We already bucked tradition this year by going looking for supper before the food booths were closing down for the evening. If all else fails, tradition provides something to deviate from now and then.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good;

blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.”

Psalm 34:8