Traditions?

Traditions can be aids to living or rigid boundaries, maybe both. Since getting married in 1971, I have always served almost identical meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas. . . .because that is what my mother always did. I liked what she served and after her death 18 years ago, I started keeping her memory alive by doing the same.

The last two Thanksgiving dinners (not this one though) have been spent at DC and AA's house in Austin, where two families' traditions were melded together. I can see that AA is more generous than I was in that she included her husband's family's recipes, which I never even thought of doing!

With the birth of our first grandchild Avery, I knew we would have a quiet Thanksgiving at home with four of us (CB, son BJ, daughter MJ, and me). I asked the three ahead of time if they wanted the traditional jello salad (lime with grated apples and carrots, celery and pineapple chunks, sometimes with nuts). BJ said he didn't like it; MJ told me to make "a small one" (MJ is always diplomatic); CB said he didn't care.

So this time I made no jello salad, which gave me the extra time to try to make a homemade pie crust. That was definitely a break in (my) tradition, as I have used frozen pre-made pie crusts since I had children (or for the past 31 years). That was definitely time-intensive, with chilling the pie dough before rolling it and chilling the prepared pie crust before baking it. But the result was markedly better, and here for years I had thought the pre-made ones were the same as those homemade! (This despite the fact that I've always made the top crusts for meat pies. . . .)

The resulting meal had no jello salad and two vegetables instead of one. I am pleased with the beets I bought last week at the Farmer's Market, which I tried with an orange sauce. We also had our usual steamed broccoli with cheese.

Doubting my ability to make the pie crust, I bought frozen ones to have in reserve. After making the homemade one, I also used one of the pre-made crusts with the regular pumpkin pie filling. So in an unusual turn of events, we had two pumpkin pies, which we compared last night after we saw the new Harry Potter movie. (Homemade crust won, but so did the regular old pie filling with concentrated milk and not cream.) There was a break in tradition in that the second pie was not pecan, which oldest son DC always wants.

These minor alterations in our menu brought me to the realization that I can be freer about holiday meals. It was fun to experiment with the pie crust and the beets. Perhaps I have been too rigid, trying to be the "plastic" version of my mother. . . . All I want is to serve good food that people like! I know the freedom is to choose, whether the traditional or the new and accept it all as a celebration of family. . . .and I am still open to fixing jello salad if the two older kids want it!