Talking About Traditions

Bryan and I at Thanksgiving last year

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! This post is going up a bit later than my normal posts, but I literally couldn’t function last night. Sleep was VERY MUCH needed. Before I start my day of festivities, I wanted to take a moment and talk about traditions. The other night, I was talking to Bryan about how important traditions are to me. I think they are super important to establish, especially once we start having children. 

When I think of holidays when I was younger, especially Thanksgiving, I’m reminded of many family traditions. My entire family would go to my grandmom’s house for dinner. There was probably 20 or so people all in the same small row home in Southwest Philadelphia. There were my grandparents, my parents, three uncles, three aunts, five cousins (including me), and usually some close family friends. 

Clockwise from top right: my sister Tara, me, my cousin Stephen, my cousin Julia

When I was really young, my cousins, sister and I would dress up as Indians and Pilgrims and put on a play for the rest of our family members. We were super into the play. My older cousins, Malissa and Amanda, would help with our costumes and the production of the play. It was really serious. After dinner, everyone would gather in the living room and watch us reenact the first Thanksgiving. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. 

Dinner was always delicious. It wasn’t until recent years did I realize that our Thanksgiving dinner was unique. We had food like turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, but we also had halupkies (stuffed cabbage) and some sort of goulash. My grandmom loved cooking traditional Hungarian foods for the holidays and it wasn’t until I was much older did I start to appreciate that. All I knew was that it was a tradition in our family to go to my grandparent’s house and spend time with my cousins, aunts and uncles. 

Now that Bryan and I have our own little family (hey, a dog counts!), I want to make sure that we start our own holiday traditions. So, I want to know… what Thanksgiving traditions does your family have? Comment below!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Enjoy a day filled with family, friends, love and good food.