Holiday Habits by Edmund Marsh

What creates a family tradition? Why is a certain vacation spot more special than another with the same basic attributes? Why must the family Christmas celebration repeat the annual ritual to seem authentic? Chances are, these events evoke memories of happy times, perhaps shared with loved ones who are long-gone. Traditions often become fixed in our minds as children, when we’re still learning how things ought to be done.

We’re entering the season of traditions. In the physical therapy clinic during this time, I routinely ask patients about their own cherished customs. Food is a favorite topic, particularly foods that must make it to the table at the family feast. I especially appreciate responses from patients I know are just a generation or two removed from an immigrant ancestor. I’ll often find someone in the family still preparing grandmother’s signature dish–or wishing they had the recipe. It’s a tangible memory that fills their heart, as well as their stomach.

This week, many of us are anticipating some special food as we gather for Thanksgiving dinner. Will we be disappointed? It may depend on who does the cooking. My wife seemed satisfied with her forage among the food offered at her first Thanksgiving with my family–until she had a chance to speak to me alone. “Where are the mashed potatoes?” It seems for her, the meal is incomplete without them. But mashed potatoes were not part of our tradition.

Not that we truly had a rigid tradition regarding food. Then, as now, I’ll tuck into whatever is served. I welcome new foods. But given my druthers, a short list of simple fare must also be present. The first is an oven-baked turkey. I won’t turn down your fried or smoked fowl, and I’ll even eat your ham without complaint, but I favor my wife’s browned-in-the-bag bird. I also like her dressing creation, a hybrid of her mother’s stuffing and my mother’s Southern cornbread dressing

The Thanksgiving spread should also be colorful, with a couple of green vegetables and a dollop of cranberries to balance the richness of the other foods. And please remember the sweet potatoes. My wife was introduced to my mother’s sweet potato casserole topped with brown sugar and pecans at the meal referred to earlier. Which brings me to my first Thanksgiving with my in-laws, during a trip to California.

After a few days’ hiking among redwoods, over black-sand beaches and with elk in northern California, my wife and I headed toward her parents’ home in Paso Robles. Along the way, we stopped for a bag of Gravenstein apples for her mother’s homemade pie. As we entered the market, I noticed a bin of sweet potatoes, and suggested we purchase a few. “My family won’t eat them” was her response. I don’t remember my reply, but we arrived in Paso Robles with sweet potatoes.

That evening, after checking her mother’s menu and deciding it was lacking, my wife asked me to place a call back East to secure the topping recipe. The next day, my mother’s casserole graced the Thanksgiving buffet alongside the mashed potatoes. I tried to hide a smug smile when I noticed the empty dish as I came around for seconds. My wife’s niece borrowed the recipe, thus establishing a new, transplanted tradition, observed over the past 25 years.

What about you? What’s your family tradition at this time of year? Is it food, or something else that makes your holiday complete?