Some people are lucky enough or organized enough to be able to plan the traditions that become part of their family Christmases.  They decide what they want their traditions to be and then go about creating them.  Their trees are decorated with strings of popcorn and cranberries, they go carolling in the neighorhood on Christmas Eve, and their freezer is full of professional looking Christmas cookies as early as November.

Traditions exist in our family no less than in the families where elaborate preparations go into creating them.  It's just that the routes of our traditions are a little more circuitous.  

Even though I've made efforts at creating special Christmas traditions, I find that there are only a few things that I can really count on from year to year.  Unfortunately, they're not usually the traditions I've tried to foster.  

I can count on our Christmas tree being dead within a week because I can't find a place to put it that's farther than four feet from a heating duct.  I can count on stepping on pine needles through at least March.  And I can count on planning a special family excursion to chop down our tree, but ending up buying it precut in a K-Mart parking lot. 

I can also count on discovering new traditions every year that I was totally unaware of.  

When my girls were young,  I overheard the  seven year old tell her sister that the presents in their stocking are always wrapped.  In actuality, those presents had been wrapped only once in the previous seven years.  But that one time was the previous year, the Christmas that she remembered most vividly. Since my four year old had only vague memories of any prior Christmases, and took everything her older sister said as gospel, I found that we had a new tradition that year.  Henceforth, every stocking present would be wrapped.

Other traditions have been even more elusive.  One year a reporter came to my youngest daughter's preschool and interviewed the kids about Christmas.  As with most things that happened at school, I knew nothing about this, and was surprised to open up my local paper and see my daughter's picture.  I was even more surprised to read her quoted as saying that "Santa Claus brings you presents and puts candy canes on your tree."  I certainly knew about the presents, but the candy canes were a total surprise.  Recognizing that I wasn't always in tune with our traditions, I asked the kids.  My oldest knew nothing about it, but my youngest swore it was true.  And from that Christmas on, it was.   

This year, our traditions were turned upside down since my oldest daughter wouldn't be with us, having moved to West Africa with her family in July.

I broke tradition, shopped early, and managed to get all of their presents to them before Christmas.  It even  seems that I did a pretty good job, which was particularly important this year, since returns weren't going to be an option.  

My grandson loved his tunnel, my daughter liked the earring holders I made for her, and her husband liked the shirts that I bought at a very deep discount so no one would feel bad if they didn't fit. There were other presents too.  All equally well recieved. 

But I wasn't perfect.  According to my daughter, there was one definite "fail."  It was the entire series on CD of the TV show "My So Called Life," which was a favorite of hers years back, and which I was sure she'd enjoy since their own TV selections are limited.  

A good present indeed.  Except for the fact that this is apparently the  third Christmas in a row that I've given it to her. 

It seems  I've started another tradition.