Most families have some sort of holiday traditions that have been passed down through several generations.
I can’t remember any from my family, so I started some of my own.
Mom and dad are both gone, my brother lives in northern Canada, and my sister lives in southern Florida. They may have their own traditions, but, if so, I don’t know what they are.
I guess my traditions are not just for holidays.
I bake a lot.
Cakes, pies, breads, cookies, candy and more fill the counters in my kitchen year round. Just more so in November and December.
I buy aluminum pans in a wide variety of sizes, usually when they are on sale somewhere.
Then, I fill them with all of my goodies and deliver then to our church for Sunday snacks after the service.
I take them to our neighbors, and they use the sweets for their family dinners or parties.
A couple of my trays of food are taken to the Hacienda Vieja in Pendleton to share with all the staff.
Some go to the pharmacy at CVS on State Street to thank them for all the help they have given me answering questions about all my medications, insurances and lots of other medical advice.
The girls in the Madison County Federal Credit Union in Pendleton like to sample all of my new recipes.
And now, the nurses in my cardiac therapy are the latest recipients of my kitchen surprises.
One of our family traditions started when our daughter, Angi, was young.
After wrapping her Christmas presents, we put the labels on them.
Her name, rather, GK (Girl Kid) is on the tag.
In the “from” line, we always put a clue to what is the present inside the wrapping.
For instance, “1969, Neil, Tome” is a book about the moon landing with Neil Armstrong.
We bought her a calendar. The clue is “So you don’t forget my birthday!”
This continued after our grandson, Benjamin, (BK-Boy Kid) came along.
The clues were easy when he was young and gradually got harder.
A recent one was “blue or gray, made of lead.” This was some Civil War bullets to add to his 4-H collection.
My wife, Susie, has a large package under the tree this year which says, “Sounds like a little car horn.”
It’s a new metal detector. (They go Beep, Beep when finding a metal target.)
Every Christmas, (and also every Thanksgiving) I fix the same meal, with some help from Susie. I buy a 22-23 pound frozen Norbest turkey at Needler’s in Pendleton.
They go on sale every November, and I get two. One goes into the freezer for Christmas and the other starts thawing in the refrigerator about four days in advance.
I have a large, old roaster pan (the blue one with white speckles) which I purchased about 50 years ago. It has a large domed lid.
I clean the bird, rinse it, then, spread salt over the top.
It goes in the oven at 375 degrees for one hour, then, I turn the temperature down to 275 for three more hours.
After the first three hours, I take the lid off and start basting the turkey with the broth.
Usually, about that time, the little button has popped saying it’s done, but I keep on cooking it.
Every twenty minutes or so, I baste it again. After four hours, the legs and wings are falling off and the bird is done.
While this is going on, I am making the sausage dressing (a double batch), two quarts of home grown green beans, Susie makes her corn casserole, mashed potatoes, and deviled eggs.
I use broth from the turkey and make gravy and have made homemade bread the day before.
Dessert is a sugar free chocolate pie, sometimes a crumb-crust apple pie and maybe a chocolate sheet cake for Angi, her favorite.
Of course, we have the same menu for the next two or three days until the leftovers are almost gone.
Another tradition is we have our meal around noon, finish eating and cleaning up the mess, retire to the living room, turn on the football game and fall asleep.
The author may be reached at [email protected].