Yum!

Food is the "central activity" of all our family traditions. The common theme is baked goods: pastries, cookies, pies, cinnamon rolls, brownies, etc. Oddly enough, my mother makes homemade cinnamon rolls every Christmas morning my entire life. This was so normal and expected that when I did not spend Christmas day with my family, I was confused why the family I was with did not have cinnamon rolls. For the longest time I thought that it was what everyone did. When I was a teenager, I finally asked my mom why she made cinnamon rolls on Christmas day every year. And why in the world could she not make them more than once out of 365 days. Her response was, "I don't know...I suppose it is because my mom made them every year, so when after she died I took over." She never even questioned her own mother. She just continued it because it was a tradition.

The other weird tradition my family has had is making doughnuts on Halloween. Who does that? My mom is a teacher and we lived in the school district she taught at, so every Halloween we would have like twenty random students in my house eating doughnuts. My mom baked amazing treats and we were not allowed to unhealthy food when I was growing up...ever. To the extreme, that all growing up and even now, I will hide junk food in my underwear draw. Her baking and me helping, or mainly just eating, has not only kept our traditions alive, it has become a neighborhood connection.