Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Family Traditions

My extended family wholeheartedly believes in tradition. Do something twice and it's considered a tradition. Easter holds the promise of traditional BBQ Chicken. July 4th...more BBQ. We had to break our long standing Christmas Tradition when our families grew to include new babies. So we started our own. Ham and biscuits for breakfast. White beans and home made chili sauce on christmas eve. Wine beginning early Christmas afternoon. My sister's husband drinking enough to be sweet to me by 6:30.

But the ultimate in tradition in the Roark Family is Thanksgiving. Nearly 30 years ago my aunt Ginger began preparing Thanksgiving dinner for the Roark family after she lost her mom on Thanksgiving day the year before. We are seated at a long table with perfect linens, beautiful china, and shiny silver. Each person has an assigned seat that only is adjusted when someone is born or marries into the family. The food. Oh the food.

We'll start: cold cranberry salad, cornbread dressing with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy (both giblet and faux giblet), english peas, corn casserole, asparagus casserole, sweet potato casserole both with pecans and with marshmallows, sherried fruit, and, of course, turkey.

Perfection. Ginger and her family work for days on the food, and weeks on the silver. It's one of the most perfect days. After lunch we take turns telling what we are thankful for from the past year.

We are blessed. Hope your Thanksgiving is filled with as much food and love and family as mine will be.

2 comments:

Shelly Hunt said...

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family Leslie.......it's so nice to have someone else cook for a day....lol..........it's secretly one of the things I'm most thankful for !

Leslie Scott said...

IT is truly a beautiful day isn't it?