The secret is not in the potatoes.

The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over."

Most of our lives, it would seem, are deeply imbedded in tradition. Things have been handed down and given over to us even if we didn’t want them, and now they’ve stuck and have become like so many things we didn’t choose as part of our identities.

Example: I don’t know how many people have had the chance to choose what may be the largest part of one’s identity – their name. No, you didn’t. You’re Marcia or Roger or Nick or Cathy because tradition dictated that your parents would name you. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, when you longed to be a Heather or Kimberly.

How we celebrate the holidays is another thing we ourselves didn’t choose, but someone somewhere along the way specifically designated things like turkey and stuffing and Santa and cutting down trees to be the traditional ways to spend these times of year.

But what I want to know is - what do you do when these traditio become the traditio of yesteryear? I didn’t choose my name and people always get it wrong, (the equivalent of calling a Laura, Lucy or Leslie or Lucretia just because it starts with an "L,") and I didn’t want to have to choose to be the one to cook the Thanksgiving dinner this year. However things change and at the exact moment I was ready to throw it (tradition) out the window (9 floors up), the thought of a stuffing-less second to last Thursday of November made me start to feel all sorts of panicked.

Of course, in the end traditio persevered (as it always does) and I have to carry on whatever way I can along with it. So, now, I’ve been left in charge of the great undertaking of fitting a 12lb bird into a New York City apartment oven within the confines of a New York City apartment kitchen. "Oh, tradition," I’ve been muttering under my breath with no small amount of gravy-soaked bitterness.

So while it may be too late to change you name (all those monogrammed sweaters...) you can change some traditions enough to make them work for you - despite perhaps, the overwhelming feeling you might be getting at the very thought of having to stick your hand (the horror!) up a turkey’s bottom.

Oh, tradition. I don't think that was the "hand down" they were referring to.