Family + Traditions = what?

Bizarre family traditions.  We all have them, but how/why do they get propagated?  

For every 'weird uncle Bill' or 'crazy aunt Harriet' in the family, shouldn't the remaining sane majority countermand their irrational suggestions?  Can there even be real meaning in perpetuating traditions which stretch back without explanation beyond the memories of any living relatives?  

I'm sure your family has some odd elements, and I won't claim mine has the oddest, but the Annual Webber Family Musicale has got to be in any Top 100 list on the subject.  It includes a majority of non-family guests, pot-luck dinner with an established annual menu, mandatory amateur musical recitals by all guests, a middle-aged (sorry gals) chorus line (w/ high kicks), and a cultishly-beloved seasonal green punch.  In the 40+ years since its inception, the event has changed considerably as participants grew up, moved away, had kids, and then returned to impose the same embarrassing public performance requirement on the next generation.

Still, while most of us balk at its weighty 1950s aura, it does retain a lasting nostalgia which is as undeniable as it is irrational.  Some years are more eventful than others (the year 2 son-in-laws dressed in drag to fill out the 4-person chorus line is the penultimate example); and these days many of the "young'uns" don't make it back every year from their disparate lives, but it seems to be the creepy, warm, aging centerpiece of our family .

In other words, its peculiarity, both historically and presently a source of some embarrasment and frustration, also serves as a unifying core for our family identity.

And at 40+, it's no spring chicken in the family tradition field, especially compared with more recently (and thankfully aborted) examples:  Christmas Octave campout, anyone?  But it's not timeless either.  It's a result of a particular family and a particular neighborhood circa 1959(ish), and while those people have kept it going ever since, what is to become of it when they are all, eventually, gone?  If the event that is the core of my larger family identity withers, what does that mean for my perception of the family?

Again, I delve into my situation because it's all I know, but surely my experience cannot be that different from others.  Many immediate families have their special celebration methods, especially around the holidays, but these are easy to maintain (barring losses and distance) because they involve so few people.  But larger family traditions, where the tradition is a primary component of uniting the family, seem much more precarious.  I know of other examples from the lives of my closest associates, but as yet have seen no solutions inacted or even much recognition of the fragility of these practices.  It's always, "just something we do," again usually referred to only after pressed and often with embarrasment.  

I've lost the focus here because I don't have an end in sight.  I can see an eventuality when younger generations will take up the mantle on this, as other, family traditions, but as tradition changes, and indeed it eventually must, how does it retain its authority, credibility, and value?  Clearly this question pushes beyond the limited scope of familiar relationships; if tradition is based on continuity and authority from the past, how can that be maintained when continuity breaks down, and how can new traditions attain that same austere reverence?

While you're thinking about it, make sure to practice whatever musical instrument you own.  Doesn't matter if you actually play it or not, if an invite to the Annual Webber Family Musicale lands in your mailbox next December, you'll need to have your A-game ready.

Weber

::(lame) Texpatriot