Halloween night light,
Thanksgiving cleanup,
Black Friday Christmas
Holiday Traditions ~ ~ Past and Present
When I was growing up, the month of September was the doorway to the holiday season. The first day of school was the day after Labor Day, and then a few weeks later, the first day of Autumn hit and temperatures began to “fall” along with the leaves. Then October 1st arrived, and we were off to the holiday races and with that came a multitude of traditions!
As a kid, the holiday season was exciting! Halloween with a great costume, trick or treating with friends and all that candy. Thanksgiving we get to see the relatives and the smells of all that delicious food. And then the best holiday of all…CHRISTMAS with all the cookies and parties and presents. For the adults the time seems to fly by, but for kids the time seems to drag on forever and it feels like those special days will never get here. Did you feel that way too, or was it just me?
As an adult, it is stressful! Halloween with its last-minute costume designing and “do I have enough candy, do I have the “good” candy?” Thanksgiving comes with the big question, “how many people are coming?” Is the turkey big enough, and heaven forbid you forget the cranberry sauce! And then there is Christmas, for some reason the most stressful holiday of all. Don’t get me started (lol), but don’t get me wrong, I am a sucker for the holidays, and I wouldn’t trade any of the stress that comes with each of them for anything! Especially today because when I got married, I was introduced to a few new traditions, and as still grew older, I came up with a couple new traditions still.
HALLOWEEN
In a grown up light
As I grew older, Halloween was still a lot of fun with all the “grown up” costume parties and all that “candy” came in liquid form. Now a days, in my much older years, I don’t look forward to Halloween all that much. I mean, it never really was a “favorite” but now a days, I could really go without it. The costumes, in my opinion, have transitioned a little too far over to the dark side. Zombies, witches, and demons are a far cry from fairies, grannies and hobos. Who remembers the hobo costume?
My new tradition
Well, I have found a way to bring light into such a dark holiday. My Halloween tradition is to put Bible verses on the candy. We buy the good stuff, the fun size chocolate bars. I print a Bible verse on address labels and stick ’em on the candy bars. It is my hope and prayer that someone needed that particular Bible verse on that particular Halloween night.
"THE" verse one year
One example of a verse I used one Halloween was John 11:35. Yes, the shortest verse in the bible. It’s reads, “Jesus wept.” A friend of mine suggested I use John 11:35 and I’m laughingly thinking, seriously? Well, apparently that’s the verse the Lord wanted me to use that particular Halloween and here’s what was on each candy bar that I handed out that year.
John 11:35 ~ “Jesus wept.” Simple yet powerful. These words tell us that Jesus although fully man and fully God, felt sorrow and loss. He wept for the loss of a friend, and He weeps for you. He feels your pain and hurts with you and cries with you. Let Him in so He can comfort you.
Surprisingly enough I did fit all that on an address label and I gave out over 250 pieces of candy that year. Let your light so shine Lord!
Carve out some time
A long-standing tradition that I remember as a youngster, is carving pumpkins. My dad always did the carving and we always loved to watch. I do remember always being afraid of him cutting off a finger, but Dads are superheroes in that manner. To us they are invincible. Plus, we kids were never allowed to handle the sharp knives.
Living on my own, I never carved the pumpkin, because, again, fear of chopping off a finger. However, when I met my husband, it was something he loved to do, so I grinned and bared it and started carving pumpkins. Still always afraid of the fingers getting in the way. I mean, you’ve carved pumpkins, right? So, you know how tough the skin is! It’s not a smooth carving. It’s very choppy.
But while the daughter was growing up, she was really into the pumpkin carving ritual and she even did some herself, with the extreme assistance of daddy, of course.
I have noticed that this time-honored family tradition has fallen by the wayside. I don’t see a lot of carved by hand pumpkins these days, of course it could just be because I live in a small town. I wonder if in the bigger cities I might find more pumpkin creations. But in the meantime, here’s one year of pumpkin carving at our house. Can you guess who carved what?
THANKSGIVING
Generation to generation
As Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, the tradition of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, toasted marshmallow yams, gravy, rolls, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie with a boat load of whipped cream will remain intact for as long as I live. My mom did the best job with that Thanksgiving dinner every year. All the family that came, all the decorations, and that juicy turkey with all the trimmings. And the meal was so simple and basic if you will. There was no sausage or apples in the stuffing, just plain dried bread cubes, celery, onion, sage seasoning, a few eggs, and enough chicken broth to make it all stick together. The mashed potatoes were just that. No bacon, cheese, garlic or even the peel, just peeled potatoes, butter milk and some salt and pepper. The star of the show, the turkey, was of course stuffed with that ordinary sticky stuffing, and butter rubbed all over it, and the passed down tradition of basting it every hour with the juices that formed in the bottom of the roasting pan. Taking all day to cook letting the house smell like turkey all day, nothing compares. And dessert? Pumkin pie. No brainer. Nothing else required (except maybe whipped cream). THAT is the perfect Thanksgiving dinner I grew up with and still love today.
The turkey’s new wave tradition
I will never forget the year I went to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and I came face to face with the idea of deep frying the turkey. I was stunned and I truly had no words. The image of poor Tom turkey being, ever so gently, plunged into that tub of hot oil, crushed my thanksgiving spirit and my taste buds were not impressed. I’ve always grew up with the turkey cooking all day, so when they pulled this deep-fried turkey out of the oil after only 20 minutes, I found it darker and crispier than I had expected. Then to top that off, this one had to sit and wait for the next turkey to fry, so when we were ready to sit down to eat, there was a mixture of hot and cold turkey meat. Plus, all the traditional trimmings were lacking, so needless to say, I was so home sick for Thanksgiving.
The secondary Thanksgiving tradition
Although the food has been, is and always will be the main tradition in my family for Thanksgiving, there is also the tradition of the cleanup. How many of you, when you were kids, got stuck cleaning the Thanksgiving dishes? WE DID. My two sisters and I did. And my husband tells me he and his two brothers did as well. Even with a dishwasher, there was still too many dishes to deal with. But, as time went on, and we grew up, somewhere, somehow, the dishes tradition transferred to the men. Whaaaaatt??? Men doing dishes, and the Thanksgiving dishes mind you?!? Yes they did and to this day when my side of the family gets together for Thanksgiving, they still do. The proof is in the photo!
It’s awesome. Thanks guys!
Have you ever seen so many men in the kitchen at the same time?
Christmas
Packed full of childhood memories
As a California native, Christmas was usually a warm holiday. Of course, at that time, in my youth, 60 to 65 degrees was, pretty, chilly. But now that I live in Colorado, I would welcome with open arms a 60-degree Christmas morning.
My mom was great about traditions especially at a Christmas time. We could always count on her baking. Oh, the smells that came from the kitchen. The scent of banana, pumpkin, and zucchini bread filled the house. Her spritzer cookies that could only be made with a cookie press and the festive shapes they made. Her noel nut cookies I think were my favorite.
Three of my favorite Christmas traditions mom never skimped on were:
- the nativity scene that she would set up on a table all its own for everyone to see
- the homemade advent calendar she made for each of us kids. She tied goodies to 24 strings she tied to the felt that hung on our bedroom door and the 24th string was usually a Christmas ornament.
- The ornament kits she would order in October. We would sit down as a family and pin beads and ribbons onto Styrofoam balls.
Unfortunately, there is one tradition that my dad always had us do, that I am sad to admit has fallen by the wayside, is that we would read the story of Jesus’ birth from the book of Luke. A tradition I think I’d like to bring back as soon as my hubby and I have grandchildren. (no rush though TayTay! LOL)
So, when I moved to Colorado, I thought I was bringing with me traditions that would continue from generation to generation. But my husband showed me a whole new set of traditions that will certainly never go out of style. One is a cooking tradition and the other is a shopping tradition.
I know exactly what you are thinking, “a man with a shopping tradition? ~ ~ Do tell!” Patience grasshopper, I will.
My man's cooking tradition
I know cut out cookies are not a new thing. They have been around for generations, and I am sure there are billions of families that bake them and decorate them every year. They were one of the baking items my mom used to bake, but just not every year. So granted, not such a big deal of a tradition. HOWEVER, when the man of the house insists on decorating cut out cookies every year, that is something to share. As soon as Halloween is over, I get the question, “you’re gonna make cut out cookies for Christmas, right?” And again, after Thanksgiving, “so when are you going to make the cut-out cookies?”
His contribution to this tradition in our little family of three, is the base frosting that goes on the cookies. His mom used powdered sugar, milk, and a drop of peppermint extract. There is an art to obtaining the perfect mixture. Not too thick, but not too thin. You want it spreadable but not dripping off the sides of the cookies.
We have found a ratio of:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 TBSP milk
1 cap full peppermint extract
at least 5 drops food coloring
to be the perfect base frosting for our holiday cut out cookie tradition. We make four separate bowls, one for each color. Red, Blue, Green, Yellow.
This tradition of his, spilled its way into my family’s Christmas traditions. He created a must decorate cut-out cookies monster in my family. But we have a blast and every year we decorate them we have a great laugh at some of the cookie monstrosities.
A whole new meaning to black friday shopping
And now we come to the tradition of all traditions. I was introduced to this one after my husband and I go married. It occurs on Black Friday, and my husband does participate. HOLD ON! I said husband and Black Friday in the same sentence. What is this holiday madness you may ask?
Well, our Black Friday shopping does occur on Black Friday, but not at the mall, it occurs in the great outdoors of the Rocky Mountains, specifically Black Mountain. We go shopping, or more specifically, hunting, for our Christmas tree. Each year that we are home to do this, we head out the day after Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday, and we head up to Black Mountain and shop/hunt for our Christmas tree. It has truly become a tradition that even the dog loves. And it really is great family time, listening to Christmas music, drudging, not dashing, through the snow looking for that perfect tree. And every year we go, we find it.
I must be honest and tell you it is not so cut and dry. We don’t wake up that Friday morning and say, “let’s go to Black Mountain and look for a tree.” NO! There are preparations involved. There is a list of things you must make sure you have before heading out to chop down your own Christmas tree.
The snow gear, a definite must
Can’t leave without snacks
Necessary tree trimming gear, and don’t forget the permit
And of course the family, dog included
What do we listen to
Of course when shopping for the Christmas tree, you have to have Christmas music, but with three different people who like three different styles, what do you do? Can you pick who’s who?
The wild life
And on occasion, we’d get to see the local wild life along the way. Some domesticated, and some not so much.
Successful Black Friday shopping
I have thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing with you about my childhood traditions, and I do enjoy the new ones that I have been introduced to throughout the years. I’d love to hear about some of your family holiday traditions.
Thanks for reading.