What holiday traditions are still going strong in your family?
It is said that friends are "the family we get to choose". Every year, I invite friends to my an annual Halloween popcorn ball making party which will be this weekend. The second weekend in Dec is set aside for baking cookies & candy making with grandkids. Our family Christmas meal is always a brunch after gifts are opened. What food related holiday traditions do you share with friends & family?
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11 Comments:
That is so cool! Our family's food traditions are pretty limited to Mom's favorite recipes: sweet potato pie, root soup (potatoes, parsnips, carrots, etc.), crouton stuffing, and so on.
And, she makes us take a dreadful family photo in which at least one of my brother's kids always makes a face. Oh, and we have to wear matching awful outfits. Ugh.
hereandthe at 9:11AM on 10/31/07
thanksgiving is my husband's favorite holiday, because he loves making the turkey. since our first thanksgiving together, we have this tradition: we wake up leisurely, make coffee, and add frangelico, baileys, and whipped cream to it (to make a Nutty Irishman), sit in front of the TV in our pajamas and watch part of the Macy Day Parade. then we get up, make another Nutty Irishman apiece, and start cooking. we always have a throng of friends come over at some point in the day, even if it's just for dessert (we eat a late afternoon Thanksgiving meal).
christmas eve, if it's just the two of us, we always have crab cakes, caesar salad, and champagne, by candlelight.
french tart at 10:36AM on 10/31/07
I try to keep the italian things going. It is not easy anymore living out in the middle of nowhere. Where as my grandmothers used to go to the store in a big city and pick up the things needed to make an italian holiday, I now have to go on a trek and drive to a half dozen places.
It seems that I am the only one that still cares to make the effort. That is kind of sad but it is my legacy and I will keep doing it.
JerzeeTomato at 11:22AM on 10/31/07
Jerzee - keep doing it, especially if it makes you happy. i get laughed at by people when i tell them we start our thanksgiving morning with boozy coffee; but it's what makes us happy and we're sticking with it. i'm all about traditions, and i think they are important.
french tart at 11:50AM on 10/31/07
We definitely make sure to eat all of our holiday meals together. Whether it be having the Passover seders, or the Thanksgiving feast, we're always there together as a family. For Hannukah, we bake latkes together - that's one of my favorites!
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 6:50PM on 10/31/07
Sadly we have made a tradition, out of breaking tradition.
I have personally become so negative towards anything that even remotely looks like the traditional holiday foods that I have created a tradition of not following any of them.
But I must also report that I cringe every year when my job makes me roll out the same old same every year....
I am pushing for a craw fish boil, grilled lamb chops, or even beef ribs in place of the customary turkey or ham!!!
I've did my best to do away with any food traditions we have had in the past but have replaced them with outdoor grilled and smoked meats, cajun or creole dishes, or even just a full non-traditional banquet of food (minus everything you usually get).
Love the previous idea for two - crab cakes, caesar salad, and champagne, by candlelight. Maybe I will try it this year...
My new tradition may be stealing others!!! hahaha!
...cook, chef, culinary sponge, traveler, volunteer, missionary.
tyronebcookin
tyronebcookin at 7:31PM on 10/31/07
new years day is always bbqed ribs, blackeyed peas, smothered collard greens and cornbread. thanksgiving is smoked turkey, mashed sweet potatoes, cornbread stuffing, smothered collard greens and pecan pie.
christmas is cornish game hens, cornbread stuffing, potato salad, pumpkin pie and believe it or not....smothered collard greens.
olddad at 9:12PM on 10/31/07
my orthodox friends in brooklyn and i have been celebrating chanuka together for years and years. it started when their five children were small and i wanted to do something fun with them, so i started the tradition of coming over one night during chanuka week and making latkes. we make applesauce and peel and grate the potatoes and onions together, then i stand at the stove and fry latkes and send them out, smoking hot, to the table, until everyone has eaten their fill.
her kids talk about it all year long. i can't wait for it to be chanuka now!
cybercita at 10:38PM on 10/31/07
There are traditional things my mom cooks (like cookies, this jello mold thing, stuff like that). And I have tried so hard to preserve traditions, but as my siblings and I have gotten older its been more and more difficult... as a result I have started my own traditions over the past few years, I go to my brother's for Thanksgiving (we cook something different every year, this year we're having a mexican fiesta) and I make Stollen every Christmas. And we try to have coffee cake Christmas morning.
lola27 at 1:48AM on 11/01/07
Christmas Eve is the Feast of the Seven Fishes. There will be at least seven different seafoods served - probably more. The main course is always Lobster stuff with Crabmeat. There is no meat served.
Lentil Soup on New Year's Eve. Be it on NYE or New Year's Day - we must have lentil soup. The lentils resemble coins and this will promote prosperity in the coming year.
An old friend used to have a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas day for his grandkids. I thought this was a nice tradition.
T-Giving brings a "newer" tradition. I make pie crust cookie cutouts for my daughter. I use Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cheddar Pie crust, brushed with egg and topped with turbinado sugar. This began when I had leftover pie crust one year and now I have to make a batch of the dough just to make the cookies.
chiff0nade at 9:21AM on 11/01/07
I like the popcorn ball party idea! I have a cookie party every year (this will be my 11th annual) in December and make many varieties of cookies to share with my friends, as well as a few other savory and sweet treats. We make and decorate cookies during the party, too.
This grew out of my mom's tradition of having an open house every year since the late seventies, but hers is much bigger and she bakes and freezes items for weeks in advance.
We have a few other food-related holiday traditions, including homemade bread and cinnamon rolls on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We usually have black-eyed-peas as part of the New Year's Eve or New Year's Day meal, and sometimes sauerkraut and sausages are a part of that meal as well.
Thanksgiving changes a little for me every year, but in childhood the traditional components were mom's sausage dressing, turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and canned cranberry "sauce." Now we usually have Susan Stamberg's mother-in-law's horseradish cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes with rum, chestnut dressing, and...still...a turkey.
mscherryclafouti at 11:16AM on 11/03/07