Traditions
Thanksgiving is an extra important holiday in my family, one that we love as much as we love like it was Christmas…which it kindof is. Due to religious reasons we didn’t celebrate Christmas growing up, but Thanksgiving became a day to be thankful for our family and to give gifts along with the more typical Thanksgiving feasting. Even more important than gifts is Cookie Day…and trust me when I say that it deserves the capital letters.
The Saturday before thanksgiving the adults wake with a bit of a twinge and the ache already beginning in the back and the feet. The minute the kids pour in, thrilled with the prospect of rolling a few cookies and then letting the adults roll the rest of the 900+ cookies, and with the prospect of f rosting and decorating a few cookies before letting the adults frost the rest of the 900+ cookies.
I wouldn’t miss it, no matter how exhausting it is. I love the flour, the sugar, the endless rolling and good natured bickering with my sisters. I love watching my mom enjoying the whole process. I love watching my niece grow up in the process and join the full ranks of rolling and frosting and good natured bickering.
My brother, blowing off some steam, said that we should stop with all this, with the presents, the cookies that it was just a "replacement" for not celebrating Christmas, insinuating it was a second best that doesn’t matter as most of us celebrate Christmas as adults. He’s wrong. It’s beautiful, it’s important, and it isn’t second place or a replacement…it has become a tradition, and tradition isn’t a bad word.
New things are wonderful, new things to eat, new things to do, keeping things fresh in it’s own place is good. So is tradition. So are those things that kids look forward to all year and can keep track of and know for certainty because it is the way it always is–and should be. We have the Cookie Fest the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We exchange gifts at Grandma and Grandpa F’s on Thanksgiving and we eat a magnificent meal with all the trimmings. We go to my mom’s side of the family reunion the Saturday after Thanksgiving and catch up with family and friends. My mom buys Marie Collander pie crusts because we found out they taste better than our homemade and take a lot less time. I make the pumpkin pies with double the spices and my mom makes the chocolate pies–four of each, and my sister will make an apple pie. We’ll use oval Chinet plates because with 7 siblings and extra spouses/girlfriends/boyfriends and children we got tired of washing all those plates–but we use real silverware because my mom isn’t ready for plastic. My sister Sarah is taking over the yeast roll mantle this year, but there will be homemade yeast rolls, hot and steamy and crusty with the meal. My oldest brother will be late and wiggle out of doing the dishes. There are 12 seats at the "big" table and all the older kids will ooze with envy for the eldest getting a spot at the main table while they are at the kids table. We’ll eat too much and then sit in the living room looking through ads while I plan out my strategy for hitting the sales the next day and finishing up Christmas shopping while the kids scatter around the house and play with their presents.
Tradition is good. It’s an anchor in a world that changes so quickly, in lives that shift so fast while children grow up at the speed of light. It connects the generations as the older one grins as the younger ones enjoy with freshness the things the older one enjoys for its time honored past. Thank you, mom, for giving us these beautiful traditions, I love each an every one of them.
It is a sweet tradition and the photos are great.
I come from a large family and I know how hard it is to keep up these type of family traditions as the family ages and grows apart. Kudos to you and yours for keeping us such a wonderful event for the whole family.My youngest daughter’s birthday is Dec. 20th and we celebrate each year by inviting the whole family over to make the gingerbread cookies that our dear late aunt made year after year for everyone.