A [long] time ago, it feels so long in some ways and close in others, my life included several important traditions. Thanksgiving was spent traveling to Grandma Carol's house and enjoying the noodles (if you try to tell me Thanksgiving tables musn't hold noodles, I'll cut you). Christmas Eve was at my Grandma Reta's house, and you couldn't open the presents until the dishes were washed - although this was the one day of the year we were allowed to use the dishwasher (it wouldn't hold all the dishes, and they had to be carefully rinsed beforehand, but oh, what novelty and freedom!). And Christmas morning itself - Curlysis and Jimbo and I had a carefully-devised structure to the Gift-Opening situation that started when we would wake with excitement in the very wee hours of the morning and progress until we could hold it no longer at the excruciatingly late hour of 7:00 a.m.
Traditions started to change. It was a little suspicious at first, but mostly-welcomed. Grandma Reta's became soup for dinner, and then some weird vegetarian was embraced into the family ("Aunt Lynn" - who is not and has never been legally or biologically related, but is every bit a part of our family). The year we switched to disposable bowls for the soup was a little hard for me, I'll admit. Christmas Eve without the dish-washing? What is THAT?? And as family has grown to mean different things we've embraced new people, tried not to watch the losses disappear into just memories, and adjusted. It was hard to go from such absolute traditions to a more flexible arrangement of life. What do you mean we're changing the day of "Christmas" to accommodate this new situation? They need to adapt to US! But also it was awesome, and we sort of knew it at the time. As life moves on I appreciate it more and more. The traditions. The willingness to adapt the traditions. I reflect on it every year, especially around this time.
My own Thanksgiving/Birthday traditions have made big shifts over the last 16 years. I have celebrated with Margaritas and Guatemalans on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I've celebrated with Margaritas and just my Yummy a month before our birthdays in Podunk, OH. Birthdays have included streamers (something I never got as a kid) and nerf gun fights (ditto). Thanksgiving become a Tennessee tradition - a wonderful meal with my Tennessee family followed up with games and movies into the wee hours and extending into a long weekend of shared time. I introduced my Tennessee family to noodles - homemade, Grandma Carol style noodles. Some of my "legal" family joined us and noodles became all the more important. I became the go-to person for providing the, ironically, vegetarian Thanksgiving options. And each year there have been changes, and each year they've made life even fuller and richer.
This year changes abound. This will be the first year in almost my entire life I've not had family come to Tennessee (I think my first Tennessee Thanksgiving didn't include anyone from "back home"). I started the Tennessee tradition because it was too difficult and potentially unsafe to rush up to Illiana and back amid holiday traffic and little sleep. I think I started it because of the limited time with my school and work - it just took up so much time I didn't have to spare at the end of the semester. This year, my final Tennessee Thanksgiving, I've come full circle and can't leave for the schoolwork hovering over my head. To keep the Birthday-Day/Night & Thanksgiving Morning/Day loneliness from threatening to turn the holidays into a pile of sad, I'm approaching them with an Offensive Spirit. My barely-still-high-school-girls and I are having a Birthday/Thanksgiving/Last Pre-Married Sleepover. We'll incorporate important, long-standing Thanksgiving traditions like Alice's Restaurant into our plans, and pumpkin muffins for breakfast (nobody ever appreciates them like I do, but I can't help myself). I'll get to have a last Hopwood Thanksgiving. And then I'll pack myself up with groceries and utensils and Christmas decorations and laundry and head over the mountain to North Carolina. A new tradition is the Thanksgiving-on-Friday with Windtalker and anyone else we can find who needs to be part of a Thanksgiving Love Fest. Family is about welcoming in people who need to be part of a family - I learned that through my lifelong holiday traditions. There will be pumpkin pie (yes, mom, with Cat Slobbers - his request). There will be green bean casserole. There will be fake-meat (I'm thinking a Seitan Roast). And yes, there will be homemade, Grandma Carol Style Noodles. Some traditions must be kept constant, no matter how they change.
Traditions started to change. It was a little suspicious at first, but mostly-welcomed. Grandma Reta's became soup for dinner, and then some weird vegetarian was embraced into the family ("Aunt Lynn" - who is not and has never been legally or biologically related, but is every bit a part of our family). The year we switched to disposable bowls for the soup was a little hard for me, I'll admit. Christmas Eve without the dish-washing? What is THAT?? And as family has grown to mean different things we've embraced new people, tried not to watch the losses disappear into just memories, and adjusted. It was hard to go from such absolute traditions to a more flexible arrangement of life. What do you mean we're changing the day of "Christmas" to accommodate this new situation? They need to adapt to US! But also it was awesome, and we sort of knew it at the time. As life moves on I appreciate it more and more. The traditions. The willingness to adapt the traditions. I reflect on it every year, especially around this time.
My own Thanksgiving/Birthday traditions have made big shifts over the last 16 years. I have celebrated with Margaritas and Guatemalans on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I've celebrated with Margaritas and just my Yummy a month before our birthdays in Podunk, OH. Birthdays have included streamers (something I never got as a kid) and nerf gun fights (ditto). Thanksgiving become a Tennessee tradition - a wonderful meal with my Tennessee family followed up with games and movies into the wee hours and extending into a long weekend of shared time. I introduced my Tennessee family to noodles - homemade, Grandma Carol style noodles. Some of my "legal" family joined us and noodles became all the more important. I became the go-to person for providing the, ironically, vegetarian Thanksgiving options. And each year there have been changes, and each year they've made life even fuller and richer.
This year changes abound. This will be the first year in almost my entire life I've not had family come to Tennessee (I think my first Tennessee Thanksgiving didn't include anyone from "back home"). I started the Tennessee tradition because it was too difficult and potentially unsafe to rush up to Illiana and back amid holiday traffic and little sleep. I think I started it because of the limited time with my school and work - it just took up so much time I didn't have to spare at the end of the semester. This year, my final Tennessee Thanksgiving, I've come full circle and can't leave for the schoolwork hovering over my head. To keep the Birthday-Day/Night & Thanksgiving Morning/Day loneliness from threatening to turn the holidays into a pile of sad, I'm approaching them with an Offensive Spirit. My barely-still-high-school-girls and I are having a Birthday/Thanksgiving/Last Pre-Married Sleepover. We'll incorporate important, long-standing Thanksgiving traditions like Alice's Restaurant into our plans, and pumpkin muffins for breakfast (nobody ever appreciates them like I do, but I can't help myself). I'll get to have a last Hopwood Thanksgiving. And then I'll pack myself up with groceries and utensils and Christmas decorations and laundry and head over the mountain to North Carolina. A new tradition is the Thanksgiving-on-Friday with Windtalker and anyone else we can find who needs to be part of a Thanksgiving Love Fest. Family is about welcoming in people who need to be part of a family - I learned that through my lifelong holiday traditions. There will be pumpkin pie (yes, mom, with Cat Slobbers - his request). There will be green bean casserole. There will be fake-meat (I'm thinking a Seitan Roast). And yes, there will be homemade, Grandma Carol Style Noodles. Some traditions must be kept constant, no matter how they change.
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3 comments:
Oh my. How could we have failed you so much. You mean for all these years you have misunderstood that those are calf-slobbers and have nothing to do with a cat? I can only hope it is an Apple computer induced spelling error.
Oh, and there is a similar sign on the Huck's convenience store men's room door. Not that at they are open, but about the automatic lights. And it is really dark when the door closes before the lights come on
I want Thanksgiving noodles. No fair. So jealous. Every important meal, in fact, should have noodles. This is my executive decision.
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