Holiday Traditions and COOKBOOKIN'TM

By Debbie Sherman

With Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner, I started thinking about holiday traditions. What traditions do you and your family celebrate with? You may have one and don’t even realize it. If you don’t have a family tradition, it’s never too late to start one! The best way to have a pleasant and meaningful holiday is to create your own family traditions. The most important part of a holiday tradition is that everyone participates and enjoys themselves.

Decide what part of the holiday is most important to your family. Is it religion, cooking a special dish that your family has only once a year, baking cookies for gifts, going for a family walk after your meals, ornament exchanges, playing board games?? There are literally hundreds of ways to create a family tradition. For me, at Christmas time I send each of my grandkids a snow globe. My family did this when I was little and I wanted to pass this down to my grandkids. I have some beautiful snow globes and fabulous memories of staring into them and watching the glittery snow fall until every speck was settled.

My Thanksgiving tradition is mostly based around cooking. I love to get up early, make stuffing and put the turkey in the oven. While the bird is cooking, it's church, football and more cooking!! After our meal I go for a long walk in the park and think about the color scheme and theme for Christmas decorations. Friday after Thanksgiving I watch the Wizard of OZ in the evening with all the Christmas tree lights on. I burn candles and cuddle up with hubby. These are all yearly rituals that have been a part of me for years.

Most holiday traditions include food, whether it’s a snack while decorating or baking cookies or decorating gingerbread houses. Who doesn’t remember any special holiday meal traditions? A couple of years ago my husband decided that we were not going to fuss with cooking for just the two of us and that we were going to go out to dinner instead. Well, that will never happen again! I missed the leftovers and the cooking and even the cleaning up! Even though it’s a lot of work, it is work I love!

My love for scrapbooking and documenting our family traditions play a huge part in my holiday season. In the last few months I decided that I was going to create my own cookbook of our favorite meals. Most of the time, food is the focus of family gatherings and traditions. It plays a very important part in everyday life…why not document it and pass it on to your family. They will love it! As you’re sitting down eating a meal that your grandmother cooked when you were little…the memories will come flooding in! Traditions are a reflection of your family’s beliefs and personality…..something that should be treasured forever. What about the foods you celebrate with? Are they traditional dishes? Have they been recipes that have been handed down through the generations? It’s important to document these family heirlooms! You could include a family recipe next to a picture of the dish or someone preparing it. These recipes are an important part of family history and traditions! Don’t forget to hand these memories down as your legacy !

I wanted to share a layout I created about my grandkids and their family tradition. Every year my grandkids make a gingerbread house with their mother. I love getting the photos of their annual gingerbread house! You can see how proud they are and how important this tradition has become in their lives. I’ve included the recipe for the gingerbread so that one day, when they have a family of their own, they can pass this tradition down to their children. I created this layout using products from Cookbookin .com They are perfect for documenting your families favorite traditions!

Family traditions are such an important part of a legacy, don’t forget to document your traditions!