Pass The Fruitcake

The importance of Ritual & Tradition — especially during the holiday season

Photo by Prince Abid on Unsplash

As the holiday season moved past quickly, people have rushed to bake cakes, buy presents, decorate their homes, and attend religious services. All of these things, although stressful and sometimes annoying, are keys to staying healthy in this cyclical journey we call life. These repetitive holiday activities are a part of something our society is increasingly forgetting about: Ritual & Tradition.

From cooking dinner to grocery shopping to taking communion to eating your grandmother’s secret recipe chicken, all of us participate in rituals & traditions. We often forget how intentional each of these things originally were, though, because capitalism has turned them into a profit-making machine. Anyway, why does your grandma make that special chicken in the first place? Why do you grocery shop when you do? Why do you take communion?

I have asked these questions lately and have come up with some beautiful answers. It even sparked an important discussion with some of my family members about (what I thought was) the most disgusting food ever: Fruit Cake. I have always heard of fruit cake as the butt of jokes. My parents hated it, too, so I always heard bad things about it. Baking…