Column: Tradition

Kate + Ponies Column

They say that horses, like humans, are creatures of habit. They find comfort in doing the same things over and over. I have found this to be quite true, especially when training horses.

Horses, because they are prey animals, tend to be untrusting toward humans when you first start training them. When you think about it, it makes sense; it’s like saying “hey, I know your genetics and instincts say to run away from me, but let me climb on your back similar to the way a cougar would when eating you and hey! Let me strap this contraption made out of the skins of other dead animals on you too while I’m at it! Trust me!”

But with repetition, they do learn to trust and sometimes enjoy being ridden.

This seems to me to be the reason people have traditions (or at least one of the reasons). We seem to find comfort in doing the same things for holidays and other occasions. Along with traditions come memories, fun times, and usually family and friends. We want to feel contentment and familiarity in a world that isn’t ever content and is constantly changing, so we have traditions.

One of my family’s traditions for Christmas is to get together on Christmas Eve and watch the movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”. Even though we’ve seen it a bunch of times, it’s still so much fun to get together with my brothers and their families and my parents to laugh at Chevy Chase’s holiday antics. Now that we are all married, it’s hard to find time to be in each other’s lives. But I know too well that life can be incredibly short and it’s important to make family a priority. That’s why I try to keep traditions alive and even start new ones with my family.

What traditions to you have and how do they help your family?