Tradition

With Thanksgiving coming up, my family is beginning to buzz. Last week I called my sister and told her she should plan on decorating the tables and doing it up right. I could see her rubbing her hands together in anticipation. Decorating is her thang. She did accuse me of having her decorate so that she would stay out of the kitchen. Well, yeah! But then my sister called back the other night to say that there seems to be a conspiracy to keep her from decorating – that we were going to have T-Day at my brother’s house. That was the first I had heard that rumor. I know communication often breaks down in our family, so I told my sister I would check it out. So I called my SIL. Sure enough, my SIL and mother have decided not to have T-Day at Mom’s as we have had in the past. My brother’s house is very nice and I know all will be well, but it has caused me to do some thinking about tradition.

After talking with my SIL last night, I called my baby sister to tell her that we were indeed having Thanksgiving at Pete’s house. Kathy was good with that even though she may not get to decorate using Mom’s China. She also told me that her husband had told her to stop trying all sorts of strange new recipes and to learn to make the old traditional recipes from Mom. You see, Mom always makes the dressing – my grandmother’s recipe, of course. Most people love it. Jesse does not, but after asking around she discovered that everyone has the tradition of making awful dressing. Although our family now fries several turkeys and they are most popular at dinner, my mom insists that we bake a turkey so that she can have the broth to make her dressing. If no one wants to eat a baked turkey, surely we can just buy turkey broth to do the dressing – but that would mean breaking tradition.

Although my BIL told my sister not to make any odd recipes, what will we have to tease my sister about if she does not make some crazy recipe? It is tradition to pick on her – she is the baby, ya know! On the phone, she told me that she had talked with our big brother and told him to be sure and bring tamales from Austin. That is so wrong. Every year he brings the funkiest tamales ever, when most of us would rather have good ol’ traditional tamales. Okay, I will admit that some funky tamales are good, but it is also a tradition for my brother-in-law and me to go down to the "tamale/crack house" as he calls it, and buy some excellent traditional tamales. And we will do it, too!

I’m feeling my traditional world being shook a bit this year, but I’m good. Since I am usually head wrangler at Thanksgiving, maybe I need to take a break. It is tradition for me to be bossy, but I think I will let the other type-A personalities take over. I think my little brother could play the part of Dad. Maybe it will be a new tradition.

As long as we get to play some football, all will be well.