Traditions

I’m sitting here this morning in the quiet of the house, before anyone else is up, watching the sunrise behind the Christmas tree. It’s beautiful. The pinks and purples and reds… It’s just… magnificent.

Isn’t it beautiful! It’s distracting me from my post but what a beautiful distraction… I want to keep taking photos as it grows and changes but really, I’ll just sit here and enjoy it. Be right back.

Okay, I had to get one more… actually DH took this one as he came downstairs… that’s why there’s no tree in it… He wanted to edit out the lights!! Crazy man… I told him that’s the POINT!

Anyway, back to the post. What are your family traditions? Do you have any that are super duper special to you?

We have lots… well sort of… We have the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving morning, turkey and all that jazz for dinner and movies in the evening. The day after we start decorating! It’s definitely a several day process. We have lots of traditions for celebrating the season, all the way to Christmas Eve and Day.

But one of my most favorite traditions came from my childhood. Noodles, Homemade noodles. We only ever got them at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sadly it’s not a tradition that my little has fallen in love with at all. (edit… DD is very upset with me because she does love it and wishes I always made them.) DH usually only eats one or two noodles, DS stopped eating them when he was pretty young. DIL eats one or two if I make them but it’s not really her thing either I don’t think. DD does eat them and likes them but she can take them or leave them.(edit… I was wrong about DD she absolutely LOVES them!!) I don’t always make them anymore and that makes me so sad… They are my absolute most favorite tradition.

I love making them, letting them dry, sneaking bites here and there… I love the smell of them cooking and I LOVE EATING THEM!! If it were up to me, I’d only serve this for our Thanksgiving/Christmas meal. I don’t need the turkey, or the dressing, or the creamed corn (which I can’t eat any more anyway), or anything else… well, I’d still want the bread and the mashed potatoes too. But that’d be it… If it were up to me… But I don’t always make them anymore.

But this morning I got up and what a joy it was to mix these up! We are going to over to DD’s this evening to trim her tree and dec out her home and I thought it’d be fun to take these for dinner. I’m really looking forward to it! I’ll pack the leftovers too, but I’m so looking forward to these noodles.

It was always such a big deal growing up! It’s makes me sad that my kids didn’t really ever fall in love with it (edit… DD did fall in love with it!!) but as I rolled these out, I imaged my future grandkids helping me and telling them all about eating them as child myself and how much my daddy loved them! He even preached a sermon about our noodle eating! I’ll tell about how my siblings loved them too, still do. It’s a big part of their meals still to this day and I’ll admit I’m a little jealous but maybe I can bring it back with my grandkids someday. I can tell how we would sneak in and a pull one from the pot and get yelled at in the process. I’l tell them how we would fight over them at the pot and just how very special they were/are and how much we loved them.

I don’t know if you can tell, but I’ve been feeling pretty nostalgic lately. I don’t know what’s going on there… do I feel this way every year? I don’t think so… Maybe it’s because I’ve been thinking a lot about my ancestors… I’ve been reading a lot about doing “ancestral work” in your spiritual life, maybe that’s what I’m doing and feeling. I don’t know but it’s been very real and I get pretty teary, very easily lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been looking at old photos of my daddy, my grandmother, and my sister all of whom passed many years ago… maybe it’s because I recently got to see a video of my parents wedding, which was AMAZING!! But I remember as I watched it with DD, I pointed at my granddaddy, whom I’ve never met and have only seen in still photos, and as I pointed him out and watched him walk with my mom down the aisle, I nearly burst into tears! I was completely overwhelmed with emotion. I could watch that video over an over again.

Anyway, I love homemade noodles and I can’t wait to have them tonight as we decorate DD’s home. I’ll come back later and share the final photo of them before we eat!