By: Samuel Guerra
Picture Santa Claus as you know him: plump, jolly, dressed in crimson trimmed with white fur, his cheeks rosy from the Arctic winds. That image feels as unquestioned as having a tree in the living room—as if it’s been passed down through generations of carolers. But here’s the truth: our current image of Santa was born not in the North Pole, but in a Chicago advertising studio.
In 1931, Coca-Cola commissioned illustrator Haddon Sundblom to reimagine St. Nick for its holiday campaigns. Before Sundblom’s design, Santa wore green, blue and even brown; he was often gaunt or stern. The Coca-Cola Santa—warm, human and relentlessly cheerful—was engineered to sell soda. And it worked so well that we all forgot he was re-branded this way.
We swallow this representation every December: that traditions are fossils, preserved intact from some mystical past. But if we look closer, we see something else entirely. Fossils are unchanging relics of creatures long gone. Traditions, by contrast, are living things: they begin small, evolve through time, and often emerge precisely when we need them most. Take Friendsgiving, for example. Fifteen years ago, the word barely existed. Now it’s woven into our cultural fabric—a Thursday in late November when friends crowd around mismatched tables, swapping life updates and laughter. It emerged organically in the 2000s as young adults, craving connection, built lives far from childhood homes. Some credit its rise to the TV show Friends. No committee decreed it. No ancestors blessed it. We simply made it because it filled a void.
And this is true of all traditions—even the ones that seem timeless. Every ritual, recipe or holiday custom was once someone’s first attempt at marking time, building belonging or making sense of loss and joy. Anthropologists remind us that humans are ritual-making creatures: from ancient burial rites to weekly coffee dates, we create repeated acts to anchor ourselves in an unpredictable world. Traditions reduce anxiety, strengthen group identity and give ordinary moments a sense of meaning. They’re not museum pieces under glass; they’re tools we’ve forged to carry each other through time.
When we realize that traditions aren’t set in stone, we reclaim our agency. We stop going through the motions of rituals that no longer resonate—such as forced gift exchanges with office acquaintances, or other holiday customs that feel hollow—and start creating what actually sustains us.
That’s the gift we’ve been overlooking: the freedom to invent. My girlfriend and I recently started a tradition of our own: every time we visit a big city together, we have lunch in its Chinatown and compare that meal to the ones before. So far, we’ve done it three times. My academic department, the School of Visual Arts and Design, has also created traditions. For example, our professors each bring a pot of their best soup to the annual Christmas party, and we all enjoy at least eight different kinds while playing games. Then, during finals week every May, we gather at Waffle House to chat about the projects we made over the year and have a last hangout with the graduating seniors. The memories we’ve made during such moments may seem small, but I know I’ll remember them for decades to come.
Remember, traditions don’t need to be old to matter. You can start your own. Monthly board game marathons or a yearly hike to watch the first snow aren’t lesser because they’re new. They’re more—because they’re alive, shared with the people you love and choose to spend your time with.
This holiday, when nostalgia tries to box you into someone else’s tradition, remember the Friendsgiving table that didn’t exist a decade or two ago. Then, ask yourself: What ritual does my heart need right now? Not the marketing office. Not Hallmark. Your heart.
Let the season become yours. That’s how traditions truly live—not in museums, but at home. Nothing compares to the rituals we shape over time with each other.
