Mary's Blog Corner: Family Traditions

What is a family tradition? Dr. Susan Coady of Ohio State University says, "There's no limit to what a tradition can be...Families do have everyday routines, such as who sits where at the dinner table, or reading a bedtime story every night, but we don't really consider those to be traditions. Traditions are usually something that is a little more special — something that's anticipated and that you're greatly disappointed if it doesn't happen."

I used to say that our family didn't have any such traditions. At least it didn't feel like it when I compared us to other families. However, as I thought about it more, I realized that we do indeed have a few that our children look forward to. One that I started when Shawn & Jay were small was making a Christmas cake and putting candles on it and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus as part of our Christmas meal. I don't think I realized how much everyone looked forward to this until one year when Megan was in her teens and we had no small children at our table, I suggested that we wouldn't have to put candles on the cake and sing Happy Birthday. "But we always do that. We can't stop now," was the unified chorus. I gladly put the candles on, we sang "Happy Birthday Jesus," blew the candles out, and everyone was happy. I never suggested again that we eliminate this part and now our grandchildren eagerly look forward to it too.

Another tradition that actually goes back a generation is making homemade doughnuts when it snows. If a big snow was forecast and it looked like we might not have school the next day, my siblings and I would beg Mother to make homemade doughnuts. She would mix up the ingredients and knead the dough into a big ball before she went to bed and then put it in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, the dough would have at least doubled in size and look like a big basketball. She would roll out the dough and we children would help to cut the doughnuts out. We would carefully put them on cookie sheets and place them in front of the fireplace to rise and would keep lifting the tea towels placed over them to peek and see how plump they were getting. After they were deemed to have risen enough (usually about 2 hours), the fun really began. We would form an assembly line. Someone would lift the soft dough carefully from the cookie sheets and place them in cooking oil to fry. Another person was in charge of the frying and would turn the doughnuts at just the right time when one side was a perfect brown. The other side was done to perfection as well and then the doughnuts were taken out of the oil and put in a colander to drain. Someone else took them out of the colander and dropped them into a glaze and then lifted them out of the glaze and slid them through their holes onto narrow sticks placed over bowls so the excess icing could drip into the bowl. They would stay on the sticks until the icing was dry and then the doughnuts were removed and placed on wax paper. Not much beats the taste of a freshly homemade doughnut and we would all eat as many as we were allowed and then Mother would freeze the rest and we would enjoy them for weeks to come. My brothers used to steal them from the freezer and eat them frozen. (Okay, I might have done it a time or two as well.) They even tasted wonderful frozen.

After Steve and I were married, we found this to be a fun tradition to carry on. At first, my mother was always available to help and she would mix and knead the dough for me. I was always afraid of the kneading process and so was glad to let her do it. I don't know when the first time was that I did the entire process without Mom. Of course, my doughnuts never got as good as Mother's. I remember one time, they didn't rise at all. The kids didn't care--they ate them anyway and thought they were delicious, but I was frustrated. Why couldn't I make them just like Mom?

I think what I have learned through the years, is that it doesn't matter that my doughnuts don't get like my mother's. To my children they are perfect and delicious and something they look forward to. So, I continued the tradition and usually at least once a winter, when the children had a snow day and were home from school, we would make doughnuts together.

The last couple of winters were relatively mild and we really didn't have any substantial snow days, so the doughnut making didn't happen. This winter was a different story and snowstorm followed snowstorm. Even though none of my children are living in my house currently, when a big snow was predicted I would always get the question, "are you going to make doughnuts?" I kept coming up with an excuse but finally I sent the memo out that I would be making doughnuts last Saturday. Megan was home and Shawn & Melissa came to help as well as Jobeth Kreider. It was a fun day and I thought the doughnuts turned out really well. I will never think they are as good as my mother's but I suppose if my children ever carry on the tradition, they will think that theirs don't turn out as well as mine did. :)

Here are some pictures of the doughnut making process:

The dough