Tradition!

I can almost smell the turkey, hear the laughter and feel my synapses falling like so many dominos as I succumb to the paralyzing effects of too much tryptophan.

The holidays are coming.  Be still my beating heart!!! The holidays are here!

Dear Lord... Give me 36 hours a day for the next week, eh? Please turn my 1985 galley kitchen into a granite countered topped, commercial stove/fridge/double oven piece of paradise complete with a sous chef, a dish gnome and his cousin the laundry gnome?  The laundry gnome can have all the socks he can find and I promise not to complain if the dish gnome breaks the tumblers I bought last March.   I've broken 8 of them already.

I tend to go a little bonkers with food on Thanksgiving.  I don't know if it's a pathological compulsion to have leftovers or the satisfaction of watching my boy's faces light up when they see me roast pecans and roll out pie dough.  I've already canned 12 little jars of amaretto cranberry relish to share and to keep.  As I do every year.

Traditions.  Fueled by smells,textures, tastes, obsessions and the blood,sweat and tears of countless families the country over.  All those memories tying us closer than we ever imagined.  Or driving us apart.  It depends on the experiences, I guess.

I remember the year Grandma Glaser sat at the middle of the long tables beside Mom.  She was all white and pale. Her sheer scarf wrapped around carefully brushed and pinned silver hair as she giggled into Mom's shoulder.  That was the last year we spent Thanksgiving with her.   She was gone by the end of the next fall.

Maybe I do go overboard and cook too much.  Maybe I do get a little crazy about having the silver polished and the linens ironed.

But I sincerely believe and hope I am building something for my family.  Creating a homing beacon, if you will.

I want my boys to have such strong ties to celebrating life with me that they will be drawn to return, to bring their families, to share their lives with me when they no longer have a requirement but have transitioned into the independence of their own lives and obligations.

I wonder if that's part of what caused God to make such a big deal about the way celebrations and feasts and religious observations were to be carried out as He directed the Israelites in the wilderness.

He knew they'd wander.  He knew they'd get busy.  He knew they'd need a reminder of what home felt like.  Of what He thought of them, how He'd prepared for them, anticipated their participation in the events which tied them closer together than they realized.  Conjoined memories creating a sense of identity which drew them toward Himself in the midst of the chaos of life and the duties, foreign surroundings, strangers and longing for a promise to be revealed.

It's easy to see how we are drawn together, at a festive table to enjoy special foods and spend time with precious people.  We are prompted to remember days gone by, cherish moments we have and hope for celebrations to come.

It is hard work to create the environment that elicits a consistent positive response.  It requires planning and effort, anticipation and preparation. Tradition doesn't come easy.


Neither do homing beacons.  But they are worth it.