Traditions Carry On

Each year around this time our home is transformed into the Kebler elf house meets the postal sorting station. We bake and box, package and top (the wines). Within two days every dish in the kitchen has been used at least once and the packaging tape has been lost about fifteen times. As for us after all of this we are exhausted, our legs hurt from standing for countless hours, our backs hurt from bending and lifting, our bodies long for a soft bed. Some will ask (as they do of many things in my life) if this causes such pain and discomfort then why do it?
The answer is easy-- TRADITION. To me tradition isn't something you do because it has anyways been done, instead it is something you do because it holds meaning, and joy, and love at the core of why you do it. 
I was reminded what a joy traditions are as we delivered baked goods to our neighbors recently. One neighbor friend invited us in and as we noted we couldn't stay long he and his wife offered us a seat and began chatting about all sorts of things from the weather to vacations. But then my neighbor, he landed on a very special story. He spoke of when he was a young boy (as his wife notes, "before the war") and how in the Fall he would go out into the woods and search and search and search until he found what would be the perfect Christmas tree. He would tend to the tree and check in to ensure it was still there waiting for a special day. He would ask his mother each evening if it was time to get the tree. She would reply to him that it wasn't time, not yet. As he spoke you could see in his eyes he wasn't sitting in this living room, he was there at the apron of his mother, gleefully waiting for her permission. A smile came over his face as he looked to us and said, "then one day I would ask and she would say yes." He paused in this moment to hear her words once more. Then he proceeded to tell us of how he would rush to the woods to cut down the tree for Christmas. He would haul it home to set up in their window. They would decorate it with homemade items. He chuckled as he thought back on this moment, just then his wife interjected to ask what type of tree it was. He told he it was just an old pine. she noted there must not have been many branches to hang the ornaments. He laughed, replying, "That was fine, we didn't have many to hang." 

As we sat there laughing I began to think of what had brought us there that day- TRADITION. When I was a child my mother would bake at Christmas time. She made cookies and cakes for our teachers, the neighbors, friends, family, even the mailman. I remember that from Thanksgiving till Christmas break my brother and I would haul baked goods around the town, knocking on doors and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I remember watching people's faces light up as they wished us the same. 
I didn't understand when I was younger how much those days of watching my mother bake would change my life. Not just at the holiday season, she baked year round. it was normal in my house to have my dad ask about cookies or pie after dinner and if there weren't any made my mother would quickly go to work and it seemed that what takes me hours took her minutes to do. My mother would sing the whole time (she still does). Sometimes she sangs songs I knew and other time she just made things up, singing about birds, and fish, and children playing.
As a child I refused to bake, I even tried to refuse to go in the kitchen. But as I got older I found what my mother knew was nestled in our kitchen- peace. There in the kitchen the world makes sense, measure this, add it to that, mix it together. There are rules and measurements and all of it was in the control of the cook/baker/chef. But it was more than the rules. In the kitchen there was also adventure. Sure you could follow the rules or you could break free and explore flavors. But still rules and adventure are not what create traditions, there was something else in every kitchen- LOVE.  My mother didn't cook and bake simply to feed us and nurture our physical growth, she did these things, as she does, all things- LOVE. In each meal or cookie there was love. Her baking tradition wasn't because she had to, it wasn't because it was asked of her, it was simply because she loves all those around her. 

Growing up my family had many holiday traditions- driving to see the lights on Christmas Eve, hiding presents around the house, an elephant on the top of our tree, walking the beach on Christmas morning, but of the them all it is the baking I remember most vividly. I believe this is because it wasn't just about us, our family, it was about putting together bundles of love to brighten the holidays of others. There is nothing in a store or online that can be bought that fills a room with the joy that food brings, especially cookies. 
For me the tradition runs deep int he holiday season and each time I open my pantry to get out the sugar and flour. Traditions are formed when we aren't even looking, or when we think others are not paying attention (especially children), make sure to make those traditions a part of you and never let the world tell you to leave tradition at the door- unless you are dropping off cookies for later!!!   

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