Some Traditions....You Just Cannot Break!

  The holidays carry with them many, many heartwarming traditions. Some have been in families for generations and nobody ever questions the logic behind the traditions, they are just merely repeated every year for "old time's sake".  Makes sense.  Maybe.  My holiday season starts way back in September.  It is then that I am preparing for the clue hunt we hold each October and for Halloween.  These are relatively new things in the way of traditions since neither were big deals back when I was a kid.  Thanksgiving, however, was always special in our household....it still is.  I always make the traditional Thanksgiving Day meal.  Mark would have it no other way.  A turkey is roasted and all of the trimmings are prepared.  The cooking actually has to start several days in advance since I would never be able to finish it all in time.  

  Today, the kitchen was a busy place.  Son and I were making pies for the big meal.  Pumpkin pies are always the required dessert for this feast and that, more than likely, came about merely as a way to use up all of those Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns.  I know that I never waste a pumpkin! Since pumpkin pies are also a favorite around here, we usually make four or five pies.  Those never go to waste either!  While we were making the pie dough and the pie filling, I asked Son if he preferred a blueberry or an apple pie as our single pie.  I know this seems a bit contrary to my previous statement and do not get me wrong here...we did make four pumpkin pies...three regular and one vegan..but there was that single pie that needed filling.  This brought up an interesting conversation between the two of us.  "Why do we always make one pie different?"  he queried. I pondered the question.  Well, I do because my mom, your grandmother, always did.  She did because her mother did.  One might reason that it was all planned.  Perhaps it was done just in case a neighbor dropped by on Thanksgiving day and it would make a nice gesture to offer something besides pumpkin pie. While this seems logical and quite the nice gesture, I think there is another deeper answer.  By this time, I was rolling out the last of the pie dough and he had filled all of the previous pie shells with the yummy filling.  "Ummm, I am out of filling." he stated. Yep!  That is exactly why there always seems to be an odd pie!  "Huh?" Well, when making pie dough and pie filling from scratch as we do, there is not a lot of way of judging just how much of either is needed.  Our pie plates are all different sizes, too, so invariably, we make too much dough. Instead of wasting the extra pie dough, Great-grandmother, grandma and I always had some sort of fruit on hand so we filled that extra pie shell with whatever was handy.  Hence, one odd pie was baked.  "Sounds good to me." he mumbled as he slid another pie into the oven.

  While this "odd pie" tradition turns out to be more of an act of being frugal, the true tradition is just spending the time together.  Yes, we were busy baking and cooking but, at the same time, we were chatting and enjoying each other's company.  This is something that the family has done for generations....traditional Thanksgiving Dinner preparation equals togetherness.  I have a lot of thankfulness in my heart.  Oh...and he chose apple!