"The Importance of Holiday Traditions: Creating Vivid Memories” By Roxanne Mankin Cason.  My most vivid holiday memory is one from my childhood that brought home to me how lucky I was. My parents had been vacationing in Mexico. On their flight home, a bomb exploded on the plane.  It had been placed in a suitcase, with the intention of killing 20 people who had been insured.  The explosion did not bring the plane down, and my parents were the only ones who were seriously injured. The plane landed at an army base deep in the Mexican mountains, and fortunately, my parents fully recovered fro their injuries.

I remember quite intensely the first Thanksgiving after my parents returned from Mexico.  Thanksgiving was a rather formal affair in our family, and I can remember my father standing at the end of the dining room table. In a hearty voice, he reminded us of how much we had in our lives. I was so thankful that my parents had survived to be with us that day.  I think that was the very first time I made the connection between what was most real in my life with traditions and rituals and holidays.

My husband and I like to spend the holidays at our home in Hawaii with our sons and their  girlfriends.  We always celebrate at home and love to include friends. It's a special time (as the holiday often falls on my birthday) so it is festive, and we love all the tradition.    I always try to bring something profound into the conversation.  I put something at each person's place at the table and ask each to read it and comment on it or ask someone else at the table to do so.  Some years, I ask people to read from a philosophical phrase book or a grace book.

Other years, I use message cards, medicine cards, angel cards, or fortune notes.   I try to change it around each year to keep it fresh.  It has become an important tradition in our family.  Copyright 2008 Roxanne Cason Mankin All rights Reserved

Roxanne Mankin Cason, the Chair and CEO of Cason Family Foundation, and the Chair of the Harvard Kennedy School Women's Leadership Board, devotes herself to the empowerment of women worldwide. A retired businesswoman, she made her mark in her native San Francisco in the 1970s and 1980s with a career in real estate development and syndication.

As vice-chair of the International Education Council of Save the Children since 2004, Cason has spearheaded SUPER, the Save University Partnership for Education Research. She also serves on the Save the Children Federation Board. Her philanthropic efforts include funding girls’ education projects in Upper Egypt, leading collaboration with Save the Children/ Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and the Ms. Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement to develop curricula for early childhood education on tolerance and peace launching in the Middle East. Past board memberships include The Hamlin School, a private girls school in San Francisco; the Saybrook Institute, a post-graduate degree institution; Women’s Forum West; Women’s Western Bank, the first women’s bank; Occupational Medical Corporation of America; the Hearing Society for the Bay Area (now the Hearing and Speech Center of Northern California), as its board chair since 1998; and Educate Girls Globally, where she was board chair for two years. Cason is currently a Masters in Business Administration candidate at Pepperdine University and serves as president of Kona Special Air, a private jet charter company in Hawaii and Texas.