The other day somebody posted on Facebook the best definition of the word “tradition” that I have ever seen.

It’s “peer pressure by dead people.”

Not only do I find this definition very witty, and regardless of its insensitivity, I believe the meaning to be true. We hold onto traditions that were begun years ago by family and friends, many of whom are no longer with us.

By dictionary definition, traditions are events that happen at predetermined times with mostly the same people. In the spring and in the fall for the past 14 years, I meet four retired teachers from New Jersey at Houlihan’s restaurant in Bridgewater at 5 o’clock for dinner. Predictability is also an essential feature of all traditions. Joe has his top shelf Long Island iced tea, John gets a Dewar’s and water, Don orders a bourbon on the rocks, I have a Bacardi and Coke, and Tom asks for a soda.

We pretty much order the same meals every time, too. After the potato soup comes the pot roast, the chicken Alfredo, the Caesar’s salad with chicken, the penne vodka and the hamburger cooked medium. We catch up on what’s happening in our lives and then we’re on the road to home by 7. I’m the only out of stater, but I look forward to the 90-minute round trip drive every six months.

My grandparents on my mother’s side initiated a Christmas Eve traditional family dinner that our family still follows today with a few important changes. I do the blessing before we eat the meal that was always served with meatless foods. Lima bean soup was the first course. Pierogies stuffed with cabbage or potatoes were the main entrée.

The food was one thing; the candle that stood in the middle of the dinner table every year was quite another.

The same taper was used each year until it eventually burned down to the end and needed to be replaced.

Now, here’s the weird part of the ritual. Once the candle was lit, no one was permitted to leave the table until end of the meal prayers had been said.

Then came a bizarre event that one would never think should be part of a Christmas Eve dinner. After the prayers, the youngest person would blow out the candle and we were told to sit back and watch the smoke rise. If it lifted straight up, we all took a collective breath of relief, but if the smoke took a direction toward one of us at the table, we gasped in horror.

According to my grandmother, an old Eastern European belief was that if the smoke should turn toward someone at the table, he or she would not be present at next year’s Christmas Eve dinner, not necessarily because of death, but that’s what we all thought, of course.

I remember the time the smoke had pointed to Grandpa, and six months later he had passed away. Grandma reminded us about that before the candle was blown out at the next Christmas Eve dinner.

My sister Carol decided to put a stop to the death candle. She pulled me aside months before the next December.

“The death candle has to go,” she said. “The smoke had nothing to do with Grandpa’s death. He smoked four packs of Camels every day. We knew he had lung cancer and didn’t have long to live. We have to stop scaring the kids. Imagine if the smoke points to one of them?” Carol then got me in with her secret plan.

At the next Christmas Eve dinner, we finished eating and awaited the tradition of the death candle. The prayers were said. Little Roger leaned over to blow out the candle. As soon as the flame extinguished, Carol shouted, “Now!”

Suddenly she and I stood up and furiously waved our hands through the smoke so it couldn’t turn toward anyone. Then all the kids joined in the wave and just like that, the smoke disappeared into nowhere. We sang “Deck the Halls” while we choked on the smoke. Grandma sat stunned in disbelief.

Traditions change in their practice through the years. Since Grandma died, my family has added meat lasagna to the dinner menu that still includes the lima bean soup and homemade pierogies. The death candle is gone and been replaced with festive holiday tapers. The candles are extinguished long after everyone has left the table and gone into the room to exchange Christmas Eve gifts.

American novelist Elizabeth Berg wrote, “People see ‘tradition’ as something stultifying, old and rigid, nothing that has meaning or application for us today. But families shouldn’t have to follow the blueprint of the old. They can make family traditions out of whatever makes them feel comfortable and helps bring a sense of order and stability to their lives.”

As generations pass, families often tire of their traditions. Getting everyone together at a particular time and place is difficult. Educating the very young so they can follow family traditions throughout their adult lives has seemed to become a forgotten practice.

And if you want to stop a tradition altogether or have someone else do it at their house, all you have to do is introduce the death candle after everyone sits down to eat.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.