Essay - Traditions

Traditions

According to the Cambridge dictionary a tradition is “a belief, principle, or way of acting that people in a particular society or group have continued to follow for a long time”. In fact, the word “tradition” derives from the Latin expression “tradere”, which means “to transmit”, “to give for safekeeping”. People often wonder if traditions are important: I believe they are, and everyone should preserve them for two important reasons.
Firstly, if a tradition is something that people pass down from generation to generation, this means that it has the power to connect present and past time.

I am thinking about the Easter egg: this simple object that we give as a gift to children during Easter holidays, has very ancient origins. For Christians it is a symbol of resurrection as it recalls the stone that covered Jesus’ sepulcher: in the egg there is new life, which blossoms from what seemed to be dead.

Moreover, if we look again at the previous definitions, we discover that a tradition is something that joins a group of people too, from an entire nation to a simple family. This makes me think about my childhood as it had become a habit in my family to go to my grandparents’ house on the 6th January in order to lunch together with all the relatives. I remember my grandmother giving Epiphany stockings to the little grandchildren. Yet, this tradition got lost with the death of my grandmother. Nevertheless, nowadays I always remember it with a smile since the scene in which me and all my cousins emptied the stocking to count the sweets and compete to see which of us had more candies crosses my mind.
In conclusion, I think that we all should preserve our traditions. We must not forget that this heritage can ebb away, so we must try to do all we can to keep it alive, never let it die.