Traditions?

Pretty sure, ALL of them,

Life has taken me away from my own and toward the traditions of other’s for now.

I was once told that tradition is a kind of anchoring glue for families. By doing the same things at each holiday, the same things our previous generations did, we keep each other close and can even lure any wayward family member who may have strayed, back to the fold.

This concept stuck. It gave any and all tradition magical powers. It bumped their importance into manditory. At least in my hopeful young mind. I was responsible for four small humans, I HAD to maximize their chances in the world. I set up my life to give these four the best shot a very limited me, could. Tradition was big, probably because of all the effort I went to, I want to report now that tradition was more of a a fun way to celebrate and not the serious glue I counted on.

As a young mom, I one-upped my own spotty tradition-lacking childhood. I mined my early years and found tortaires, traditional French Canadian meat pies. Borrowed and made up others traditions, kept them sacred. Every one.

My parents made these pies for many years. It was part of my Christmas memories, the lively Christmas fights we could count on every year. There was the pie baking, the tree finding, the ornament unboxing and of course the fight of all fights, the wrapping of the tree properly with lights.

I have one good memory of a Christmas Eve dinner of tortaires.

My aunt on the side of the family we hardly saw, made them. We dined at her big formal table, we kids actually ate WITH the adults, as if we were every bit as valid as our parents. So strange and yet so cool and memorable sitting up at that table. The memory burned itself into my five year old mind.

I miss making these clove and cinnamon spiced pies.

As it turns out, if you weren’t raised on them, the odd combination of spice, mince and mashed potatoes tucked into buttery short pie crust, is a hard taste to get used to. Who knew?

Well, not me. I was born with a very wide palette, so new and foreign tastes have always become new loves for me. Not the nose wrinkling, culinary trauma that my meat pies have caused my new in laws, the meatless version didn’t win any prizes with our vegan and vegetarian family members either. My new daughter in law was even allergic to potatoes. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not, but other things had to be added!

Quiche, shepards pie, lasagna joined the Christmas Eve table. I still made one token meat pie for my own kids, (and me), but the magical tradition was dying out, as were many others. Eventually, every single one had its last day. I stopped making pies years ago. I don’t bake cookies, I don’t serve Easter brunch, I don’t make hot crossed buns, I don’t go anywhere for fireworks. No popcorn, no movies. I let all loyalty to tradition go.

I am no longer tethered to the strict rules of creating the perfect traditional meal or activity or holiday. I’m a go-with-the-flow girl now. I have no fear of what will happen without magical family glue to keep us all together.

Tradition has been replaced by this new magnetic force known as grand children. The happy faces of this new batch of small humans, lure us back together all the time. Luckily because we are now living in five separate cities spread far across the county.

Life. What a ride.