‘FAMILY’ TRADITIONS

A Tradition is ‘an inherited or customary pattern of behaviors or actions’. So I guess that means that something as simple as those Sunday drives we took would be considered a tradition. Every year as soon as the weather was nice enough, dad would take the top off of the Jeep Scout and on Sundays we would all load up for a leisure drive up and around the mountain. My mother thought of it as a way for the family to spend time together, but I know that it was dad’s way of getting to scope out where the deer might be hanging out. Those Sunday drives were not my favorite thing to do because it entailed sitting for long periods of time, which I was definitely not good at. Whenever I would start getting antsy dad would announce “the first one to spot a buck gets a dollar”. This would take my mind off of having to sit still for so long. My mother always complained that the roads were too bumpy or that the wind was messing up her hairdo, and my older sister just complained, because that was what she did all the time. Sometimes we got to go over the hill in the other direction to Booneville, where my mother’s aunt and uncle lived. Their son J was super tall and strong just like my Uncle Keith and I guess beings I happened to be extremely tiny for my age, they both were my personal monkey bars. They would stand close enough to the wall so they could have their arm straight and stiff with their hand flat against the wall. Then I would do like a pull up on their arm and flip myself up and over, landing on the other side. Sometimes I would just hang by my knees before flipping off, and all the while they would be acting like I wasn’t even there, just carrying on their conversation with everyone. Their house was huge and so was the property it sat on.There was always candy in the fancy little bowls on the coffee tables and a built in swimming pool that I loved swimming in even though it always seemed to be windy and colder up there then at my house. When J was in college he would come to our house every week for dinner and it became a tradition for me to spill my full glass of milk on him because it happened every single time without fail. When it came to Holiday Traditions, there was never a Christmas that did not entail getting to wear my best dress to the movie theater where all of us Masonite Kids got to sit on Santa’s lap, sing Songs with the Elves and watch a Disney movie all while our parents were having the traditional Christmas Gala dinner. On Christmas Morning, waking up at 5am was definitely a tradition that my parents could have done without. For my 13th birthday my Dad took me to The Palace Restaurant. After that it became a tradition for us to have lunch together on my birthday every year. I remember one time when we went to an all u can eat Chinese food buffet. We sat there talking and I just kept eating and eating and talking for the longest time. The man working there came over and said ‘will you be staying for dinner as well’? We didn’t understand what he really meant until we saw that it really was almost time for dinner! Dad and I laughed all the way home about it. Another true tradition was the Opening Day of Deer Season. I would wake to the sound of boots clomping , men laughing and the smell of coffee brewing. I can still see myself wearing one of Dad’s white t-shirts for a nightgown (they were as long on me as my nightgowns were but way more comfy)as I stood on the kitchen chair pouring the coffee in to his thermos. I got to go with them all once but Dad said “never again”. He said I never stopped talking long enough for them to even see a deer that day. *Dad nicknamed me Motormouth as soon as I could talk.

My most favorite of traditions are the ones my girls and I had. Like taking turns getting to be the one to put the angel on the tree. For Christmas Eve they opened one gift, which was usually cozy pajamas to wear for the following mornings festivities and photos. Every Christmas morning I would make hot cocoa w/marshmallows and blueberry muffins for everyone to have while we opened presents. When the girls were babies I began baking their birthday cakes which was usually a pink cake topped with my homemade pink frosting and I guess that became a tradition because when they were older and given the choice , they still wanted me to make their cakes instead of buy them, which thrilled me of course because I loved doing it!!. For our birthdays we always got to choose our favorite meal to have for the ‘family dinner’ that took place on the birth day. then the following weekend was their party. One of my most favorite traditions was anytime my girls went somewhere like to an amusement park, or on a class trip, if I couldn’t go they would bring home a souvenir for me. Many times, the keepsakes were Precious Moments figurines. But, no matter what, everything on my ‘mommy shelf’ will always be precious to me. Family Tradition means doing something the same way , during the same occasion, with the people you care about, that creates a desire to continue it; and when it’s gone the memories of those times help fill the hole in you from the emptiness just a little. Simply said, Family Traditions should be cherished.