Traditions

Tonight I am thankful for traditions.  Both the "official" and unofficial ones.  The ones I uphold every year and the ones I purposefully bend and break.

Today is Thanksgiving.  This is a day full of traditions.  Some of which I enjoy, some of them, I just don't understand.  Anyhow, I just wanted to write a little about today.  (Boy, this really isn't making much sense or going anywhere is it?  Oh well, I'll just plow forward and see where it takes me.  I'm just not getting my thoughts out well, could be the two glasses of wine maybe?)

This morning started with the normal "weekend type morning" things.  Then we got the whole "Thanksgiving" part of the day going.  We watched the start of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (Boo got to watch the Sesame Street float so he was happy).  We even got a call from Gak's mom.  I started cooking, more like prep-work for the rest of the day around 9 when I realized a few things would take longer than I thought.

We managed to get a family walk in and enjoyed it.

My mom came up for dinner.  Dad wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home, but told mom she had to come.  We had the traditional turkey, but we had my spin on the stuffing, some very sweetly glazed sweet potatoes (less sweet potatoes than I thought I had and more glaze....), some yummy orange ginger carrots (although I'm still not a huge carrot fan...), some herb roasted baby potatoes, some rolls, some home made apple and cranberry sauces.  Over all, it was quite yummy filled with some traditional recipes from mom and some that I've taken and made my own.  Mom brought a pecan pie and half an apple pie she made (she left the other half home for Dad).

So, even though the gathering was a little smaller than usual, I'm still thankful for the tradition of doing Thanksgiving at my house and then Christmas and/or Hanukkah at Mom and Dad's.  I just don't know how much longer Dad will be part of the tradition and that scares me and makes me sad.  I will cherish every moment and every tradition we have together while we can, but knowing that the time is drawing to a close tints things with a little bit of sad, but makes me love them all the more.

Traditions are what bind us together, make us into families, neighborhoods, communities, counties, states and countries.  There are things we do that make us unique, but things that we do that tie us to others, some near and some far.  I love both the things that make me uniquely me, and my family uniquely mine, but I love the fact that there are people all over this state and country that are doing similar things on this day that are tying their own families together.  That is the real power of tradition.  Both the keeping of them and of the bending them to make them our own.

So, I'm off to Kat's house for a bit of socializing (and hopefully not too much more desert, although a small bite of pumpkin pie wouldn't go amiss....)

I bid you peace and may your traditions be yours and yet tie you to something bigger.