Reviving a long-standing tradition

0 votes

For more than 20 years, I attended a Christmas Eve party with the same 6 families.  When the "kids" started getting married and having kids, the event ended since there wasn't enough room for all the new people plus I think the hosts were just tired of having it.  This was about 5 years ago.  We live in the same area and have recently bought a house that is large enough to host about 25 people and someone suggested we revive the tradition.  But I only hung out with half the families and have no desire to invite the ones I barely know.  Would it be weird/rude to start having my own Christmas Eve party inviting only the 2 other families I like in addition to some other friends?  What about not inviting the older generation (my parents and their friends)?

If we re-start this event, will we be "required" to keep doing it for a long time?  I know people were disappointed when the previous event ended.

Anonymous

Apr 13, 2010

1 Answers

  • 0 votes

    That's tricky. It seems to me that "re-starting" an event is a perfect opportunity to level/re-design/uproot the terrain however you like. You could set it up with the explicit assumption that you'll host it once and it will end or rotate or you'll host it every 5 years. Or whatever. In my opinion, disappointment about the previous event ending is not the sole burden of the previous hosts (or, going forward, you) to prevent or fix... the community shares that disappointment and each member can own "fixing" it. Sometimes things end. 

    We're in the middle of this right now with a gathering our friends' host - it seems to be petering out because the attendees grew too large for the space and the hosts lack the desire to continue/persevere, but while we all share the disappointment, I think we can each share whatever portion of the fix we'd like to see - we could rotate hosts, smaller subsets could gather, the whole thing could happen less frequently, lots of possible solutions if we all (or any one of us) think about it a little. It's certainly not on "them" - the previous hosts.

    As for inviting only 2 families - if the event bears no resemblance to the previous tradition - only same-generation, an almost completely new mix of people - it doesn't seem like "reviving" to me. You might explicitly try to create new traditions and discard old ones if you go this route.
    andrea

    both so cute, & so tiring!
    mountain view, ca

    Apr 14, 2010



Log in to answer this question.