traditions

Tom The Turkey And Thanksgiving Traditions

Leave a comment
turkey tom 1

Tom Turkey From the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I may have already mentioned it, but it bears repeating, LOL.

Among other favorite things about the day is the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. And my favorite parade “float” is Tom the Turkey.

There is just something about him – the colors, the old-fashioned feel of the float, or maybe even because he debuted for the first time in 1971, when I was first old enough to watch and remember what I saw – but he makes me happy.

In my family growing up, my parents (who were big on little traditions or rituals, if you haven’t been here long enough to have read some of those posts) had some for Thanksgivibg as well.  One ritual we observed faithfully each Thanksgiving morning, was the watching of the Macy’s Day Parade while eating bowls of grapes.

Yes, I know that sounds a little strange, but here’s the thing: in the 1970’s when I was a kid, we had a big family, plenty of food and clothing (almost all of it homemade) and books, but not much extra for more expensive “treats”. Apples and bananas were reasonably-priced back then, but not so much grapes. So that was what we looked forward to while we watched the parade. Oh, and tangerines, because they were also “in season” and more reasonably-priced.

Some of my favorite memories of Thanksgiving revolve around this tradition. My mother would have gotten up very early, around 4:00am, to saute the onions and celery in butter, that were to go in the sage dressing with which she’d stuff and sew up the neck and big cavity of the turkey (it was usually a 20-pounder at least, and she used a big darning needle and cotton thread….a process I still use myself when preparing turkey). The result was that the house smelled delicious by the time the parade began at 9:00 or so.

I can remember sitting on the old sofa with several of the younger of my sisters around the living room, and Pa in his chair, while Ma and my older sisters came in and out as they worked on other tasks to get ready for the big meal. The picture window would have steam from all the cooking, and the lovely scent of sautéed onion and celery, sage and turkey, simply filled the air. We all ate our grapes and tangerines and enjoyed the show. The Rockettes were another favorite, as well. But we always turned off the parade BEFORE Santa Claus came in…because we also had the tradition of no Christmas music, decorations, or discussion until December 1 at earliest! In hindsight, I think it was a great idea. Time and the seasons get rushed far too often as it is. But as a child, it took some fortitude to follow the “rules”. 🙂

My own kids still follow the same traditions, and they enjoy them almost as much as I did (though they get to have grapes a lot more frequently in this modern age!)

So, those are a few of my traditions. Anyone have any of their own to share?

Halloween, 1970’s Style

5 Comments
Halloween circa 1975 edited framed

At the Homestead, circa 1975

So, I was going through some old photos recently and stumbled upon this photo –  one of the few I have of the epic Halloween parties we used to have when I was in elementary school.

Everyone is sitting around the big kitchen table at the Homestead, chowing down on the homemade pizza, cupcakes and popcorn, along with bowls of chips and corn curls, all while dressed in their costumes.

One of the cool things about this picture to me is that none of the people sitting around the table are me or members of my family: They’re all friends from school or up the road.

See, this was the only occasion all year when I and my two closest-in-age sisters (who were the only ones young enough to have this kind of party, still, since we were the youngest three of the seven girls) could invite several friends each to the house for a “big blow-out” party.  Oh, we had friends over all the time, and there was always enough food for another three or four plates, but this was one time when we could have up to 14-15 guests AT ONCE. It was an event planned by us and anticipated by our friends all year.

Most of our friends lived in the small city nearby, where our schools were. We were in the country, and that made a huge difference for a Halloween celebration, much of which could still take place outside, in beautiful mid-October weather.

We’d set up a “Haunted House” in the one-room camp that Pa had built years before out in the woods behind the garage, and some of my older sisters would “man” it. Big, black tarps were strung throughout to make “rooms” and in each room was a different “spooky” tableau…some with moving characters who would jump and frighten those touring it.

We’d have games, like “Guess the object” where the players had their eyes blindfolded and had to guess what was in the bowls…peeled warm grapes for eyeballs, a turned out jello-mold for brains, warmed pasta with sauce for “guts” – you get the idea) 🙂 Of course we’d also play “kick-the-can” and other running-around-in-the-yard-and-woods kind of games. Loads of fun.

It was a great opportunity to be creative, in this simpler time before technology and our addiction to it made everything more accessible and therefore less mysterious and exciting.

Halloween Mary framed

Me in the costume my mother made me to be a “Scheherazade”-type princess

Halloween framed 1

One of my sisters as an “Executioner”, complete with a “bloody” axe with which she cut off my head, LOL

I never realized how much work it must have been for Ma, though, preparing all that food. And of course, we almost always had homemade costumes, not just because they were “cooler” than anything we could find in the store, but also, I learned later, because they were more economical. My parents were frugal in all the right ways, so that I never experienced a sense of “want” other than the healthy kind. 🙂

It was an innocent time filled with great memories, when Halloween was centered on fun instead of “evil” connotations, and living in the country made for some rousing good times.

Anyone else have any memories of old time Halloweens to share? Please do in the comments!

 

An Oasis of Tradition (and some Cathartic Pumpkin Carving!)

2 Comments
pumpkin 3 escape adulthood

Courtesy of escapeadulthood.com

pumpkin 1 pumpkin2So this isn’t a generic pumpkin-carving post. It’s about how carving pumpkins, in additional to being entertaining and leading to some pretty cool jack-o-lanterns, can be cathartic too.

Ma with pumpkin

Ma, enjoying the process of carving out her pumpkin’s eye, LOL

Consider this picture of my dear, very sweet, normally-without-a-violent-bone-in-her-body mother about twenty years ago, when we were carving pumpkins out in the back yard. She’s having a good time carving her pumpkin’s face…and maybe getting out a little aggression too, LOL. My father is clearly enjoying the moment, too.

Pa and Mary with pumpkin

Me and Pa another year, with finished pumpkins on the front steps

Year after year, we’d all have a good time, and it’s an example of the kind of fun I’ve tried to create with my own kids as the years have passed.

Traditions are important. They provide a little bit of something to count on, year to year, when the landscape and the world keeps changing around us (as it inevitably does). We have these moments to recreate and fall back on, to re-center ourselves, bring us back to our roots, and reclaim a little of all the different times in our lives that we participated in them.

Of course traditions come in all forms, whether for other holidays, birthdays, or just things like apple-picking or preparing favorite recipes. Sometimes they are the bridge between people who have drifted apart, giving them a reason to reconnect.

pumpkin and mary

Me around 25 years ago, sitting on the top of the “school bus shelter” Pa built at the bottom of the driveway, kept company by a giant pumpkin and the little orange cat my parents took in

I love traditions, and I’ll probably be writing more about them – at least the ones I’ve cherished – in the future. But for now, since we’re at the end of October, I’ll stick with this one. Although time marches on, our traditions only have to disappear or change if we want them to.

What are some of your favorite autumn traditions, whether for Halloween or not?

Early Autumn Tradition

2 Comments

I’m the kind of person who loves traditions.

When I was a kid, I loved – no, I guess needed – routine. I liked to be able to count on things, and I thrived on the sense of security my parents and large family of sisters (there were seven of us total, no brothers) provided. Change rattled me, so much so that when two of my older sisters left suddenly, according to my six-year-old perspective (one for college, and one who basically eloped), it threw me for a tailspin emotionally that almost prevented me from finishing my first grade year.

That sounds ominous, I know, and perhaps makes this blog post sound like it’s going to be about doom and gloom, but it’s not.  Everything worked out, and life went on more or less smoothly in the long run (well, I’m still a little odd, but that’s just me, LOL).

applepicking edited 2014

Apple Orchard near my home, picture taken in September 2014

This blog however, is about a tradition I’ve enjoyed for decades and that is one of the perks of growing up and living in upstate New York: Apple-picking! I’ve gone apple-picking every single year of my life. In fact, the joke around my house now is that if we don’t go apple-picking, I don’t make any apple pies that year. Except it’s not a joke. ‘Cause that’s my rule and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

I’m not fussy, though. We don’t have to go to a full blown “real” apple orchard like the one pictured at the left. In fact, before I was married we hardly ever went to a commercial orchard. No, we’d take a drive north to Buck Hill and the state land there, where there was a wild apple orchard, created by nature. The apples were almost always smaller than apple orchard fruit, or pocked and imperfect in other ways – but they also had no pesticides on them and they were tart and crisp, resulting in pies, applesauce, and other baked goods that tasted amazing.

Front Apples edited

Pa took this picture of the apple tree in the front yard, full of fruit

10 apple tree with apples on it in fall editedl

Shaking the tree for fruit

with the applepicker edited

Me with the apple-picker and a bag full of fruit

at the table edited

Kitchen at the Homestead, with the long table and Pa at his usual place, just before supper

My parents eventually planted two apple trees in their yard, one in the front, and one in the back, of different varieties. These ended up being very similar to those we’d find in the wild (probably because my father never sprayed them with chemicals). Still plentiful like in commercial orchards, but smaller and imperfect on the outside.  The picture on the left is from quite a few years back, when my father was still alive, and one sister and I  gathered with our families one weekend at the Homestead to pick apples and have supper with Pa and Ma.

Here I am, getting ready to use the apple-picker lying on the ground near me (more on that handy tool in just a minute) and finally just below is one of Pa in his place at the table, talking to my sister before supper.
Okay, so here’s more about the apple-picking tool: When I was dating my soon-to-be-husband, he’d come to visit me at the Homestead, and we’d pile into the van to drive up past Steuben and a Revolutionary War monument there where a tall, wild apple tree with gorgeous golden apples grew. My husband earned a reputation for his skill at wielding that awkward-but-very-useful apple-picking tool….a long wooden handle topped with a curved, coated wire “basket” of sorts, with little spiky fingers of wire to help grasp the high fruits, pluck them from the branch, and bring them safely to the ground. Maybe it’s because he’s tall and has strong arms and back (yeah, I love my guy!), but he could get to just about any apple I asked him to get for me. 🙂

applepicking with Pa

Pa and me, having a good time – and sampling the fruit – at an orchard years ago)

Over the years, apple-picking has become a beloved tradition that is more about the family and memories made together, than it is about the fruit we gather and pies  or other baked goods that result.  Pa’s death brought those memories into even sharper focus, knowing there will be no new ones to add to the collection.

Mary and Ma 2014 applepicking edited

Me and Ma at the commercial orchard near my home this past weekend…taking a ride on the tractor back to the apple barn!

And so each year the act of going apple-picking, whether at an orchard, at the Homestead, or in the wild, is both familiar and new – a kaleidoscope of images, feelings, laughter, and the comfort of sharing a simple pleasure with loved ones, and I’m so thankful for the many years I happy times I can think back on.

Traditions like these mark the moments in our lives, giving context to the whole and adding to the beauty of the tapestry. When times are challenging, such memories can bring joy that helps to balance out the rest.

As you can see, I’m a believer in the beauty and value of traditions. 🙂 Seasonal or otherwise, do you have any that you love?

Great-Grandma O’Halleran’s Hot Water Pie Crust

6 Comments
Hot water pie crust recipe

Great-Grandma O’Halleran’s Hot Water Pie crust recipe

As you can see from this old recipe index card, I’ve made this pie crust quite a few times. The card is stained with use but only a little worse for wear. The handwriting on it is my dear mother’s, and she copied out this recipe for me from her files, back when I was newly married more than two decades ago.

It’s a different kind of pie crust because unlike most, which use ice water and sometimes butter, this one uses lard (or Crisco, which is what I and my mother have always used) and boiling water. My great-grandmother who was born in Ireland in the 1860’s, Katherine O’Halleran, favored this recipe, and since she lived in my mother’s childhood household and was the primary cook when my mother was a girl in the 1930’s and 1940’s (since her own mother – my Grandma – was away all day working in the cotton mill in Utica, NY), my mother picked it up along the way.

It’s surprisingly easy, adapts to just about any pie, and I never fail to get compliments on the light flakiness of this crust. Except for the very first time I attempted to make it on my own…but that’s a story for another day. 🙂

Here’s the recipe, with instructions for a single or a double crust pie:

Place in a Bowl:

Single Recipe                                                  Double Recipe

1/2 cup lard or Crisco                                     1 1/4 cups lard or Crisco

Pour over it:

1/4 cup boiling water                                      1/2 – 3/4 cups boiling water

Mix the following ingredients together, sifting before measuring (Note: I admit I always skip the sifting part and it doesn’t seem to hurt anything!)

1 1/2 cups flour                                              about 3 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsps baking powder                                1 1/4 + a little more tsps baking powder

1/2 tsps salt                                                    1 1/4 + a little more tsps salt

Combine the liquid and the sifted ingredients quickly and form into a smooth ball. Roll out.

A few helpful hints: Don’t overwork the dough. Roll out once, on a well-floured surface, with a well-floured rolling pin. I like to gently fold the crust in half to transfer it to the pie dish, but if you’re using waxed paper under the dough when you roll out, you can just carefully flip it over into the pie dish. Cut off excess before crimping the edged with your thumbs. A finished double-crust should look like these two pies:

pies

Two double-crust pies sprinkled with sugar