Rituals of the Season

Several years ago, I had knee replacement surgery. When I got out of rehab and came home, a friend moved in with me for a few days to help with my recuperation. On Sunday morning, she brought me a mug of coffee. I thanked her and told her it wasn’t my Sunday mug. She looked at me like I’d taken leave of my senses and told me I was high maintenance. Well, maybe I am, but I have my rituals and having my Sunday morning coffee in that particular mug is one of them.

Rituals are an important part of daily life, from starting the day with that first cup of coffee to the getting-ready-for-bed routine. One website I encountered while writing this blog says that rituals can bring a sense of wellbeing into an unpredictable life. We have social rituals, such as getting together to celebrate a friend’s birthday, or some other significant event. We have working rituals, too. I like to have a fairly clean desk while I write. And my filing system seems to be piles of paper. I like to have documents, notes and books close at hand, where I can reach them. And I prefer black ink to blue.

As for personal rituals, I read my morning newspaper in the morning. During the years when I was working, I got up very early so I could write before going to work, which meant I wasn’t able to read my newspaper in the morning. During the lunch hour, I would go for a walk if the weather was good or eat lunch at my desk or in the break room, managing to read a few pages then. Now liberated from the day job, my ritual after eating breakfast is to settle on the sofa with my coffee, usually with a cat or two vying for space on my lap, with me angling the pages I’m reading over a recumbent lump of fur.

It’s early January and for me the holiday season is not quite over yet. And the season is full of rituals. The day after Thanksgiving, I haul the Christmas decorations out of the storeroom, put up my little tree and start decorating with the ornaments I’ve collected through the years. I play Christmas music and sing along with Mel Torme, Johnny Mathis and Rosemary Clooney. Then I watch my collection of holiday movies. I usually start with Miracle on 34^th Street and work my way through all my old favorites, culminating in White Christmas—Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney (again)!

Then let the baking begin. My holiday ritual is to bake loaves of pumpkin bread to give to friends and neighbors. I would miss it if I didn’t bake—and so would they. So my delectable pumpkin bread puts in its annual appearance. It’s delicious with a mug of coffee.

Back to those coffee mugs. Mom had quite a collection, which spent most of the year hanging on wooden racks on the kitchen wall. She also had holiday mugs. Every year, she would fetch the holiday mugs from the boxes where they were stored and put them on the racks, storing the other mugs until the season’s end. After Mom passed away, we divvied up the holiday mugs. Now, my own holiday ritual involves drinking coffee from Mom’s mugs as well as using a few of my own mugs I’ve collected over the years.

However, if it’s Sunday, I’m still drinking coffee from my Sunday mug.

What rituals bring you a sense of wellbeing in this unpredictable life?