Ritual in the age of rage- one way we stay connected as a family.
Hey there,
It's the first day of 2025, and I'm sitting here thinking about last night's bonfire. Every New Year's Eve, I gather with my kids around a fire, and we do this thing – we each take slips of paper and write down what we want to leave behind in the old year. Could be mistakes, could be habits, could be feelings we're ready to let go of. We don't usually share them (though 2020 was definitely an exception). Instead, we take a quiet moment, write them down, and then watch as the fire transforms them into ash and smoke.
Last night, I wrote down "bitterness." I've been carrying it around lately, feeling it build up as I watch our country grow more divided, seeing our trans friends being used as political pawns. It's been hard to stay rooted in love and empathy, which has always been my center. But standing there, watching that paper burn, I felt myself reconnecting with who I want to be and how I want to show up in this world.
Now that some of my kids are old enough, we finish the night with glasses of wine (sparkling cider for the younger ones), talking and laughing around the fire. It's one of those moments where I can feel us bridging the gap between their childhood traditions and their adult selves.
This ritual? It's not something we picked up recently. Years ago, when my kids were little and we were a military family moving from base to base overseas, I discovered how much we all needed these anchoring points. Living in different time zones, different cultures, different languages – ritual became our anchor. Sometimes it was as simple as morning story time, a book carefully chosen the night before and tucked in a basket by my chair. Small stuff, but it mattered.
As my kids grew (they're 15 to 23 now), some of those early rituals naturally faded away. But over the last few years, we've found ourselves drawn back to them with a new appreciation. Maybe it was COVID that did it. It certainly turned the world upside down. When I caught it in March 2020, with an autoimmune condition and living in a rural area with limited healthcare, things got pretty scary. Months of fever, pneumonia in both lungs – and my kids stepped up in ways I never expected, taking care of me and the house when I couldn't.
That New Year's Eve of 2020 was different. We broke our usual silence and shared what we were writing down. My son had lost out on this big DC trip where he was supposed to receive a leadership award for all his volunteer work. We all had our losses that year. But sitting there together, we added something new – choosing a word for the coming year and putting it somewhere we could see it. Something to pull us forward, not just release what was behind us.
Look, I know in our hyper-modern, tech-driven world, ritual might sound outdated or even irrelevant. But I've found that when everything feels broken and uncertain – and doesn't it feel that way a lot lately? – these shared practices become like bridges. Between generations. Across differences. Over the gaps that life sometimes creates.
Maybe that's what we're all hungry for right now. In a world where everything seems to be pulling us apart, where anger and division seem to be the default, ritual can be this quiet force that pulls us back together. Back to our center. Back to what matters.
I'm curious – what rituals ground your family? Maybe it's something you've been doing for years, or maybe you're thinking about starting something new. Whatever it is, I've found that in this peaceful rebellion against disconnection we're building here, ritual might be one of our most powerful tools.
Let me know what anchors you and your family. I'd love to hear your stories.
Walking this path with you,
Kristi
