On Traditions and Mindful Holiday-making
It’s tiresomely repetitive to recognize this has been a challenging year, especially with regard to “tradition” - that “thing we always do every year.” And at the bottom of the year, where traditions stack up into entire knit frameworks of the season, I’ve had to refocus my own sense of tradition with a newfound “holiday existentialism.”
The holidays are full of traditions, personal, familial, and community.
My mom and I hike into the woods and bind wreaths from grapevines and found botanicals every year. My partner strings the lights on the tree while I unwrap ornaments. The alabaster Father Christmas statue and the German Nutcracker dressed as a baker from my Mother-in-Law take their perches in my kitchen while I bake my annual fruitcakes (which are awesome).
We throw a grandiose tree-trimming party for our friends and neighbors, which kicks off the month of December. The month is spent baking and making homemade gifts, then on to Christmas eve spent at Mom’s, with a lazy dinner and hours of punch and charcuterie, then my sister and I fall asleep watching Ocean’s Eleven on the couch. Christmas morning at Dad’s, with cinnamon buns. A solstice bonfire with some ritual cleansing, and we’ve made it through the darkest part of the year with style.
This year, however, most of that won’t happen.
I was fortunate enough to meet mom in the woods on a windy day to bind our wreaths; no hugging, but the preservation of our tradition meant everything. Our big party, however, shan’t survive the quarantine this year, nor will our travels home.
It was a struggle, at first, not to fall into a depression when burdened with all the “can’t” and “won’t” that’s become the theme of this year. But I was able to reach a place of stability via my grandma’s christmas cookies.
These cookies are well-known throughout the extended family, because they were always present. Humorously, I think that only myself and one of my aunts actually liked them, but I ate so many of them that I believe grandma assumed that everyone had been eating them, so she’d keep making them.
They’re a simple brown-sugar cut-out, but most of the sugar replaced with honey - the recipe from a tattered strip of 1980s magazine paper, titled simply “Merry Christmas Cookies”. A pinch of clove and a touch of lemon zest, and they baked into mild, flowery, chewy stars and moons and bells and trees. She’d occasionally ice them with sugar lattice, or use a pinch of colored sugar. Simple and hearty, and I’d eat them by the fistful.
Since she’s been gone, I’ve made my grandma’s cookies every year. They’re never quite as good, though I still eat them all.
This year, however, I had a slight adjustment: I have better recipes for honey cookies. More balanced. Less sweet. More tender. Less floury. 2020 pastry-chef cookies, as opposed to 1980s housewife cookies.
My “tradition” instinct recoiled in horror - but they won’t be grandma’s cookies if you change the recipe.
I went deeper.
Is the cookie the tradition?
Is the object the same as the meaning?
As I rolled out my newfangled recipe for a spiced honey cut-out cookie, I used my grandma’s copper-plated measuring cups to scoop sugar, and kept my eggs room-temp in her antique ceramic tart-dish, painted with pink rosebuds. I cut the cookies into trees and stars and ringneck christmas geese, and decorated them with crisp royal icing - not a precisely as my grandma would have, but close.
It’s a better recipe. Grandma would have approved.
With my lap full of cookies, I sat down to write about this small adjustment in my approach to this strange new holiday season.
Sure, I’ll miss being with the people directly, but the meanings can be the same, regardless of the physical situation. I’m making homemade english muffins to freeze and mail to my dad for a special Christmas breakfast, and some chutneys and oatcakes, plus a bottle of punch for my mom’s Christmas eve charcuterie.
My sister and I will watch Ocean’s Eleven over the internet together.
The solstice bonfire will burn brightly (albeit on my deck, as opposed to the woods in my hometown). Its light and warmth will be particularly cleansing this year.
Why do you I the tradition “thing” so tightly?
From what can I physically release and find a deeper emotional, meditative connection?
How can I adapt traditions to be more personal, as opposed to dogmatic?
Id est: what is important to me, versus what do I feel like I have to do?
(Case in point: this was a great Thanksgiving to agree that my partner and I hate turkey, and only make it because everyone seems to “expect” it - we had a beautiful home-smoked ham this year.)
My holiday hope is simply this: hold tight to the “why” of your traditions, and be more comfortable with flexibility on the “what” - you’ll find a much more mindful, peaceful, and thoughtful way of engaging through this challenging time.
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Merry Christmas Cookies
From Better Homes & Gardens, c. 1960
Note: this is the original recipe; it’s honestly about a solid B+ at best. Posted here for posterity and sweet memory.
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2/3 cup honey
1 teaspoon lemon extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
In a large bowl, cream vegetable shortening, sugar, egg, honey, and lemon extract until light and fluffy. Sift in flour, baking soda, and salt; stir until well blended. Refrigerate dough at least 1 hour or overnight.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease Cookie Sheets. Roll dough 1/4-inch thick and cut into desired shapes. Place 1-inch apart onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake 8 minutes, until barely starting to color. Let cool on sheets 2 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.