Day 1: Tradition

My Funky Monkey is extinguishing our chalice at the end of supper tonight.

I don't think I do really well with creating/passing on ritual and tradition with my young family - at least not beyond daily routines and Christmas. The kids sometimes prove me wrong, like at suppertime.

I am very thankful for the sense of meaning we all find in this ritual, but mostly I'm thrilled that it means so very much to my little boy that he counts the days until it's his turn to do this duty. This is our daily familial act of communion with the Divine.

**At UU churches, we light a chalice at the start of each service or meeting of groups, etc. It's our thing. The kids do it with us in service, and one child each week called "the keeper of the flame" leads the kids to religious ed. My kids love the chalice and want one every night because it's their ritual - it helps define what they learn about the Divine (though they conjecture a lot about God). So, we have a chalice.

The child who's in line first for bath each night gets to blow out the chalice that night (we have a calendar and everything). Tonight was Monkey's night.