THE BELL CURVE:Some traditions are wrapping up

Traditions are happy surprises with legs. One of my most cherished traditions has been my Christmas visit to my younger daughter, Debby, and her family in Boulder, Colo. I made that trip last week, and as always, some traditions were fondly embraced and some showed tattered edges.

When that happens, it usually means that the cast of characters and the circumstances have changed just enough to raise two questions: Do traditions, no matter how much beloved, finally run their course? And do we know — or care to know — when it is time to move on?

So what are some of the traditions still in place?

First, there is the trip itself. It started almost three decades ago when the Christmas visit to Boulder became two-tiered, and I drew the early one. It has survived multiple divorces and age changes and — after my most recent bout with air travel — a little harder look at the comfort zone each year. (My United flight home was canceled for enigmatic reasons the agent referred to as “mechanical,” and I spent most of a day exploring the cultural environment of the Denver airport).

Then, I always buy the Christmas tree, which is about three times as expensive in Boulder, where such trees grow in abundance, as in lots around Newport-Mesa, where they don’t grow at all. And my daughter always cooks the foods I love the most and seldom get — such healthy Midwestern fare as ham and escalloped potatoes and navy bean soup and country-fried chicken. And we always manage lunch at a restaurant that specializes in breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches — a delicacy hard to come by here — and at Mustard’s Last Stand where the hot dogs are downright succulent.

And I always devote one morning to making cinnamon toast, a tradition that my youngest grandson, Trent, said he has passed along to his college roommates. But two long-standing traditions didn’t make our schedule for the first time this year. And another that ran its course was the clues I wrote in verse about the contents of the gifts I wrapped — bad poetry that was read aloud before the gifts were opened. When I started repeating myself and the results seemed more strained than funny, I gave it up — and I’m told it is missed, which is the way it should be when traditions are retired.

The most significant cast change in Boulder this year was the presence of Trent, now a fully qualified grown-up, recently graduated from George Washington University. He was at home contemplating his options — or lack thereof — and plotting his next move.

My Christmas visit the past four years took place in early December when Trent wasn’t yet home for the holidays. But before that, he grew up with the traditions my peers and I had put in place and says he feels warmly about them. But now, he adds, he’s ready to start some of his own. And so, surely, were the young people Trent brought to the house last week.

Among changes they might get behind would, for example, be upgrading Christmas music by replacing the Muzak string quartet renderings of carols with Christmas rap — an oxymoron for us purists. Few of the foods I request would ever come out of their kitchens. And early-morning gift opening would surely be replaced by a more civilized hour — like, perhaps, noon.

Trent was vague about other specifics, pointing out only that, “I didn’t have much to say about traditions as a young kid, but now when I’m coming back home to renew old friendships, I can sort out traditions that are meaningful and build some new ones of my own that will carry over into my new life.”

If that gives us traditionalists visions of a rap rendition of “Silent Night,” we have a right to be uneasy, especially when it is folded in with a growing recognition that we are now dealing with aging on the short end, where young people have, for example, reached an age that allows them to drink socially with the old folks as well as their young friends. And to start creating their own traditions. But never, last week, did I hear a suggestion that this is growing out of any lack of respect for the traditions that have been handed down to them. Or the elderly relatives doing the handing.

Nor did it interfere with Trent’s first exploration in tradition-setting. To meet his social commitments, Trent lived a triple life last week. The cocktail hour and dinner with us, another dinner at his father’s home, and then hanging out with his former high school friends until God-knows-when. This kept his life in balance while getting him in proper shape and spirit for his upcoming wrestle with what we like to call the Real World.

I fully expect to be making my trek to Boulder again next Christmas. And I also expect to see Trent there, on the second leg of building his triple-life tradition.