Tevye, and his Early 20th Century Wisdom

Tradition: noun, 1. the handing down of statements, beliefs. legends, customs, etc., from generation to generation by word of mouth or by practice 2. that which is so handed down 3. an unwritten body of laws and doctrines, orally handed down generation by generation
(The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged Edition)

Okay, so we all know what tradition means. Something your do with your family (i.e. celebrate a holiday), or with your friends (i.e. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), that you do either on a regular basis, or on a special occasion. Most of the time, traditions were started long before us teenagers were born. Do you know why you pick names out of a hat at Thanksgiving to pick which cousin you give a present to during the holidays? Me neither. But all the same, traditions are something that everyone has, or does. (I'm not quite sure which verb to use there. Any suggestions?)

Number 50 in 101 Things You Gotta Do Before You're 12! is Start a New Family Tradition.

 "So," you may ask, "what is YOUR new family tradition, Samantha?" And I might say, "Well, good question. I don't know."
Now, I'm going to use a recent personal experience here, so get ready to get a peek into my secret life!(Don't worry, I'm not pregnant.)

I went Trick-or-Treating this year. Again. Now, some of you lovely readers might have gone as well. But probably not all of you. As a matter of fact, I know some people whose parents told them they were too old! WHAT????????? Well, no one knows who started this tradition. Well, maybe someone does, but not me.
I have always done this on Halloween, and can't imagine not going out into my neighborhood to get yelled at by angry teenagers who think they clever by saying sarcastic things like "Are you blind?". Yes, once this happened to me. And that conversation went on for 5 minutes before I realized the bowl of candy had been sitting on his front stoop.
But starting a new tradition or ending an old is hard. Getting people to want to do something together over and over is hard to get started, and stopping is just depressing. As we probably all know, change is hard, and sometimes stressful. And though not going Trick-or-Treating is probably not that stress-inducing, it's a change from the normal flow of Halloween.

Traditions are a way for people to come together, but also a form of comfort. People die, people are born. People move away, new neighbors move in. Someone graduates, a kid starts kindergarten. Change is almost constant, and stress is rawther common in the life of a tenth-grade CAP kid. Tradition is a way for us to feel like life is still happening, that we still have something to hold on to, even if everything else in our life is going downhill. (Like my grades). Though I don't think I'll be starting a new tradition this fall, I will be keeping up with old ones. These rituals, celebrations, parties, etc., are all ways for us as humans and teenagers to find comfort in our crazy lives. Tradition might the passing down of something, but it's also just the idea of a reoccurring event that provides comfort for us throughout our hectic daily lives.

So if you still don't uderstand the importance of tradition, here's a video of Russian Jews singing about it in 1905.