What Are Your Holiday Traditions?

By KATHERINE SCHULTEN What traditions do you, your family, friends and ommunity ha!e for the holidays you o"ser!e in #e em"er$ Tell us a"out your fa!orites and %hy they&re s'e ial to you( In This Holiday Season, Traditions With a Twist, Kirk Johnson introduces four Times stories about nontraditional traditions: For many people, the holiday season is a sugar rush beyond coping. It can all seem too sweet, or too calculated, and thus easy to dismiss as a humbug or a thing to be endured in some sighing, tinsel-tinged burden o commercial or amily e!pectation. "ut perhaps the problem is perspecti#e, and the real spirit o the season e!ists, to borrow rom another holiday$s image, li%e a leprechaun & under a roc%, not #isible when and where you ocus, but only on the u''y margins at the corner o your eye. Four reporters went on a search or those hidden places. (ome were hiding in plain sight, amid the march o dreamers on a amous street in )ali ornia where image and reality blur. *thers were thri#ing in the shadows o prison, at a shop in Ari'ona where inmate arts and cra ts ha#e become surprise )hristmas gi t hits. *ther hidden corners were li%e snow la%es, leeting moments in the li#es o people re#ealing deeper wells o emotion. (tudents+ Whether you a ree that this time of year is a su ar rush beyond co!in or whether you lo"e this season#s holidays, tell us what you and your family, friends and community do to make it s!ecial$ Tell us about one or more fa"orite traditions, and what those traditions mean to you$