Carrying on Traditions

1/9/24

When New Year’s Day rolled around, I thought about some of the traditions from my family as I grew up. Many of them continue today. That makes my heart happy. What traditions do you carry with you?

New Year’s Day dinner must be (some form of) pork, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Mom cooked pork roast for this, which I do like. My kids, however, did not. We tried pork chops, which had a luke-warm reception. Finally I found pork tenderloin worked, and it’s been my go-to pork meal since. My kids devoured mashed potatoes, especially with gravy. Sauerkraut was hit or miss, but I reassured them they only needed to take one bite. Thus, I ensured my family’s “good luck bonus points” for the upcoming year.

So yummy!!

When Greg asked why we’ve always had this meal, I had to do some research. My family has some German origins, so I think it comes from there. I found out pork is eaten because it symbolizes progress for the coming year. (Apparently pigs root around with their snouts moving forward.) Sauerkraut is a symbol of money as it is made from cabbage, which is leafy and green. Who knew? I just knew I needed to have this meal each New Year’s Day…

My grandparents’ philosophy about the holidays meant we visited with them at some point, but not always on the holiday’s day. For example, we would have Thanksgiving at our house on Thursday, and a wider family get together on Saturday. My parents did much the same. Now that our “kids” are all adults, we’ve adopted this tradition as well, although the 5 adult kids are spread in such a way that we won’t see all of them around any particular holiday. For example, this year we hosted a family brunch on December 26. Three of the five were in town so they could eat with us. (Unfortunately one of them got sick, so we had two of them here, along with a fiance.)

Camping planning during the winter could be another tradition. Many years my parents spent the colder months figuring out where they would want to camp the following year. Although they didn’t need to plan everything out, they definitely did the leg work and mapped out many of their trips. 

Greg and I are still planning for our big trip this year. Due to less availability in campgrounds and state parks, we decided to map out as much of our trip as we could as far out as we could. We made many of the campground reservations already, carefully paying attention to the lead time for reserving a spot. (You should see our calendar with reminders everywhere!)

As it was too hard to capture the google calendar, here is the recent list we made to help us pay attention to what we needed to check.

Recently we began focusing more on each stop – what are the highlights & “must-do”s for our stay there? What could we fit in if there was extra time. Maybe more likely, what can we leave out if we are tired or need a break. (Or, what can we skip if something else breaks, like a part of the engine!!)

I can think of many more things I do that happen in similar ways each year. Sometimes there are tweaks made, but sometimes it happens the same way. There is comfort in knowing that while change happens, traditions can endure.

What are your favorite traditions?

A new tradition – enjoying the snow without having to shovel it!