family traditions

Bloganuary writing prompt

Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

Family traditions are important as they bring past to the future. Family traditions helps to maintain family contact, even when everyone lives far away. Most of our family traditions are centered around Christmas celebration.

The one food item at everyone’s Christmas celebration is what we call Church Windows. A sweet treat made with colored marshmallows, chocolate, coconut flakes and a touch of peppermint flavoring. This tradition started with my grandmother, then my mother, me and now my children. My children are starting to teach their children how to make this sweet treat seen at every home during Christmas. The main dinner may be ham, or turkey, or salmon, even prime rib with different side dishes. But Church Windows are always present for the festivities.

The recipe is simple, melt chocolate chips with a little butter to keep the chocolate from scorching, when melted mix with colored marshmallows. Then quickly put on wax paper with coconut or nuts and form a roll. Wrap roll with the wax paper and aluminum foil and place in refrigerator until hard.

Christmas Eve is the time to see the Christmas lights and decorations on area homes. We sing Christmas carols between homes with lights, as not everyone decorates. When we return home, we drink hot chocolate, eat popcorn, and watch Christmas movies until time for bed. Each family has their favorite Christmas movies, but the routine is the same for all families.

Fourth of July is always a bar b que with watermelon. The children play in the water. When darkness starts to fall, the fire pit is lite. We watch fireworks from the nearby town and if allowed, set off our own fireworks as well. Once our fireworks are depleted it is time for roasting marshmallows and smores.

Most of our traditions revolve around food. Certain foods for a specific holiday.

amtolle

My family has recipes for every season and holiday. This past Christmas, both my daughters asked that I write down all our traditional family recipes for each holiday. They also threw in requests for my bread recipe, cinnamon rolls and others.

I love to cook. During the holidays, I would have all my children join me in the kitchen to cook the meals. My sons enjoyed cooking as much as the girls. I did not have much money for gifts, but we could celebrate and have fun in the kitchen during the holidays. The foods we cooked did not have a written recipe, but was a pinch of this, a bunch of that, just so of this. They would watch and help. The measurements of how many hands of flour would change as they grew older. When they try to make the foods today, they call mom for instructions or to verify the instructions, what temperature to cook at, etc.

I also have recipes from their grandmother on their dad’s side of the family. Some of her recipes were from her maternal great-grandmother. A couple of the recipes for canning, say to “grind” the ingredients. I remember my mother using an old hand cranked meat grinder to make pickle relish. There were different blade patterns for different functions.

I am hoping next year to give these cookbooks of recipes and pictures to my children and grandchildren as gifts before Christmas. My children all love to cook and try new recipes. My grandchildren are starting to learn. It will be a nice legacy not just from me, but from generations back of their family.

amtolle

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