Traditions

There are some things in my family that just are.
Some of them have long been and some developed more recently. Some it is likely because the little girl pictured just below has a love for traditions that rivals my own. Do something twice while she is around and it becomes a tradition in her book and likely on the family calendar.
Some of our traditions come from spending holidays with my husband's family. Those include opening gifts on Christmas Eve and then leaving gingersnaps out for Santa (because my husband's cousin Kay always made them for us at Christmas time.) We also have etouffee for dinner before Candlelight Service on Christmas Eve using the recipe of a beloved family friend known to us as "MaMai."
We now have them with cups of hot chocolate made using Nana's recipe at Christmas.

A good many of our traditions have to do with food.
We have turkey and dressing, green bean casserole, broccoli and cheese for Thanksgiving.
 Leave just one of those off  the menu and watch our children howl.

We have scalloped potatoes and ham for new years with 15 bean soup and cornbread for New Year's.
When someone mentions I picnic, I think cold fried chicken, stuffed eggs, sweet pickles and watermelon because that's what my Grandma always packed for us to eat at when we picnicked at Sportsman's Lake or Lake Eufala.

Some traditions involve TV and movies:
We watch Pollyanna on the Fourth of July and just as watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and the Purina dog show following it.

We also have table setting traditions. We use my wedding china at Easter and my daughter's Cuthbertson china at Christmas. At Thanksgiving , it's friendly village, a few pieces left from my mother-in-law's set and the rest belong to my baby daughter. I add to her collection every year at Christmas. (Another tradition.)
My baby sister and baby daughter usually gather foliage and berries and late blooming fauna for the Thanksgiving table to tuck in around Grandma's cornucopia.

There are birthday traditions, too. Our children were served breakfast in bed on their birthdays f rom a tray we got as a wedding gift from the aforementioned MaMai. There are gift traditions, too. Usually involving something to wear for to celebrate their natal day and something to sleep in once the celebration is over.
Then there are the traditional decorations we use. We hang appliqued Christmas stockings purchased on a family trip to New Orleans many years ago. We've displayed paper mache and resin nativity and angels for years. I've given my husband for Christmas for at least 30 years. Those are on display in his office every holiday season.

I am reminded of this this week, in the hiatus between major holidays because I am finishing up some scrapbooks in anticipation of a family reunion and some birthdays. The things we do over and over and the continuity it creates between events and people makes me very happy.