Tradition...tradition!

My patchwork family - anything but traditional!

Although Springtime is widely regarded as a time of rebirth, it can be a difficult time for me and my siblings, as we lost both our parents at this time of year. We each remember them in a variety of ways, but one of my favourites is through the continuation of family traditions (Is it just me who instantly thinks of Fiddler on the Roof when I hear the word ‘tradition’?)

This year's Hot Cross buns - odd shape, but delicious!

Every Easter, when I was a child, I woke to the smell of Hot Cross buns being baked on Good Friday. My Dad worked in a bakery, so Mum could easily have bought them, but she chose to make them instead, getting up at the crack of dawn, so that they would be ready for breakfast - I always had special ones without dried fruit! When I married and left home, I continued this tradition - sometimes more successfully than others - and still miss ringing my mum on Good Friday morning to tell her if my buns turned out okay. The years have passed, but I still get up early to make Hot Cross Buns, and now my daughter does too. 

My daughter's Instagram version - far more stylish!

Instead of phone calls, we compare notes on Facebook and Instagram, but the tradition continues and forges a link to our family's past.

Boiled eggs, 2016...

Another Easter tradition for us has been boiled eggs for breakfast on Easter Sunday, complete with silly faces - another thing my daughter has continued. I don't know how or why this bonkers idea came about, but we always do it on Easter Sunday. 

Boiled eggs 2017...no discernible difference!

The other thing we have to do, of course, is turn the egg shell upside down when we have finished, pretend we haven't eaten our egg, then smash it with a spoon! Hilarious, right?! Probably not, but part of our family heritage.

He's been, but can you spot the cherries?

Christmas is another time redolent with customs and traditions - as many as there are families on this earth, I should think. Marrying them together when families merge can be quite tricky, but they tend to evolve and change into new traditions. One of the first Christmas presents my Dad bought for my Mum was a dress with cherries attached to it. Mum said that the seams quickly split on the dress itself, but the cherries adorned their Christmas tree every year. After Mum died, I became the keeper of the cherries, and each year I reminisce as I put them next to the fairy at the top, thinking about Christmasses past. 

Hideous Christmas Rodney!

There are other ornaments that mean a lot too - my son always insists on putting up the ‘rodneys’ which are hideous gorillas but which remind him of his childhood festive times, while I continue to hang onto pipe cleaner santas and toilet roll snowmen that the children made at school.

Family traditions are wonderful things - they provide a link to the past and a bridge to the future. When my children were small, I would put them to bed and say, “Night, night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite” to which they would reply, “Ants in your pants!” I have absolutely no idea why, and neither do they, but I really hope that, when they have children, they will all say the same thing, and think of me when they do! 

Why? Tradition, tradition!