Family traditions
By John McNeer Guest Columnist
Webster defines a “tradition” as the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends and customs from generation to generation by word of mouth or by practice. This makes for a pretty wide category of activities within a family when you really stop to think about it!
When my family took me out for a great lunch at the Red Lobster in Des Moines to celebrate my 75th birthday we got to reminiscing about some of the interesting traditions that have been established in our extended families over the years. Some of them probably go back well over 100 years, while some have developed within the past generation. I thought it might be interesting to touch on just a few of them for nostalgic reasons if nothing else.
Probably one of the oldest traditions in both the McNeer and Rosenberger families is that of having oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and going to Midnight Mass. I well remember my mother telling about her dad hitching the horses to their big sleigh on Christmas Eve, with the whole family bundled up for a ride of several miles to the rural St. Patrick’s Church in the Irish settlement.
This started long before my mother was born on Jan. 8, 1900, and no doubt her grandparents, Cornelius and Sophie started it way back in the 1800s. Mom used to talk about those moonlight nights when her Dad would take the horses and fully loaded sleigh across the fields on large drifts of hard packed snow. Wish she had written some of those memories so we could enjoy them today.
In the Rosenberger family, Mary’s dad always got out everyone’s Sunday shoes on Saturday night and polished them to a beautiful shine. For years, he thoroughly swept the Church every Saturday. This was one of his voluntary good deeds, never expecting compensation. He was a kind and generous man who started the tradition of playing horseshoes in the back yard. He was the best!
When Mary and her brother Harry were youngsters, a habit developed of seeing who could get the biggest piece of pie for dessert. Harry would even get a ruler to measure for the biggest piece when his turn came first. Crazy kids! Tom loved grandma’s great traditional chicken and dumplings!
Singing “Happy Birthday” in the worst possible fashion has developed into a tradition in our family the past 10 or 15 years. It’s hilarious, and visitors outside the family would really go into shock! Birthday cards always have the printed price on the back scratched out and a big “5 cents” penciled in. “Mother-Bear” started this tradition years ago when her husband would humorously throw a fit over what she might have paid for a nice card. Now, everyone in our family does it!
Sitting at the restaurant after lunch we had fun coming up with 16 rather unusual and unique traditions that have developed over the years. They ranged from those mentioned so far all the way to Dad yelling “It’s vee-kaaa-shun time” and waking the whole neighborhood when we headed out for vacation years ago. This quirky tratition continues in a humorous fashion!
“Let’s make a game out of it” was always part of assigned chores when the boys were little. They also remember having to do “everything twice” for Dad’s video camera to be sure the right memories were captured. For years Dad always got a head start on family “pot lucks” by swiping the first piece of chicken. Dad embellished the tradition of always spilling something on a brand new tie, or christening a fresh sweater with a telltale smudge.
In recent years, Dad (and grandpa) has made a tradition of giving a treasured book from his own library for birthdays with a personalized letter or verse and other historical tidbits secured in front and back. This also has developed into a Christmas tradition with his special holiday letter and personal check to each member of the family. His economy rate singing telegrams over the phone were also mentioned — still only 50 cents, but for just one line. Perhaps this is a good time for everyone reading this message to start making a list of their own family traditions. It may be surprising!
Olden Days appears on Wednesday. Contact the writer at mcneer@pcpartner.net.
