Holiday Food Traditions
By Janet Peterson

Perhaps at no other time of year than “the holidays” do family food traditions play a more important role. Traditions peculiar to each family provide continuity, security, and a sense of uniqueness. The “holidays” — beginning with Thanksgiving in November and ending with New Year’s in January — provide many settings for continuing family food traditions.

Certain foods help define the holidays and the warm and happy feelings associated with them. Special foods come to stand for more than the particular recipe; they help define what it means to be part of “our family” and provide a sense of stability often lacking in our fast-paced, ever-changing world.

Years ago, Sister Dantzel Nelson, wife of Elder Russell M. Nelson, spoke at a dinner in our ward and defined tradition as “anything you do more than once.” Some family traditions are generations old, and others started recently. What’s important is that families develop their own unique traditions, talk about them, and enjoy them. Months after “the holidays” have passed, talking about the chiffon pumpkin pie Grandma always makes for Thanksgiving or the fudge Dad makes only once a year at Christmas not only brings back sweet memories of eating but also the good feelings of time spent together as a family.

Family food traditions are often in flux. Someone brings a new dish that everyone loves or a new member joins the family, bringing his or her traditions to the “pot.” My neighbor Doug Cooley claims that as a young husband he quickly learned “the Behney way” of doing Christmas. Sometimes compromise is necessary for family peace or at least allowing differing traditions equal place on the table. Developing a few new traditions along with enjoying the old traditions helps create strong family bonds.

Several Meridian readers share some of their family holiday food traditions.

Thanksgiving

Aunt DeAnn's Yummy Vegetable Casserole

Favorite Apple Crisp

Christmas

Dad’s Baked Beans

Wash beans, place in large pan on stove with enough water to cover beans and ham.  Cook until beans are not quite done. (They will cook again when baked). Remove ham from hock and put in an oven-proof pot. Add beans to half fill the pot. Add remaining ingredients plus enough liquid to fill the pot and stir. Bake 4 hours at 300 degrees.

My grandfather, William Miller Hurst, was a forest ranger in the Dixie National Forest. When our family visited him and Grandma in their home in Panguitch, Utah, during the holidays, Grandpa would bring home a burlap bag filled with pine nuts, some of them still in the cones so we could harvest our own nuts. Grandma would bake them, put them in a basket, and set it on the round oak dinning table for us to shell.  I have fond memories of listening to the grownups tell stories or tune the radio to a program while we cracked the small brown shells between our teeth.   —Judy Tingey Lamphere

The meaning of food at holidays has changed for me. I was a career army officer for 26 years. After retiring, we moved to Utah to be near our daughter. About 3 years ago, my wife and I and one daughter, who is single, were the only ones of our family who would be together at Christmas. I suggested to my wife that we should let our daughter define what Christmas would be. She elected that we should sleep in, that she wouldn't come to our house, and that late in the morning we should come to her apartment and she would do the meal of her choosing.  My wife about came unglued with this change, but the daughter and I prevailed. It was a great Christmas. It was low key. The food was simple, and the recipes were different from the past. There was no coming down the stairs to all the presents laid out.  There was a simple exchange of gifts. 

We are in a state of evolution and right now I'm favoring out with the old and bringing in something new. I suppose that what I enjoyed the most about the scaled-down Christmas was the enjoyment our daughter had in doing this for us and doing it her way.  And I think that inside herself, my wife also enjoyed this daughter doing it for her.   —Thomas Coppin

My recipe and our tradition were both very simple, but it was the only time during the year that I served the "Christmas Wreath."  This always followed opening our gifts from Santa.  We began the tradition in 1967, and we continued it up until the time Jerry married (1980). I have fixed it occasionally for Bill and me since, but nothing "traditional."  I believe it was originally a Betty Crocker recipe, and it was so quick it didn't keep me from enjoying the family time.  We usually accompanied it with bacon or sausage and sometimes eggs.  —Marilyn Linn

Christmas Wreath

New Year’s

My grandparents, Matajiu and Sono Ushio, immigrated to America in 1913, and brought many Japanese traditions with them.  My family has tried to preserve these cultural traditions.

One significant holiday for the Japanese people is Japanese New Year.  One week before New Year’s Day my parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents gathered in my family’s basement to make ‘mochi,’ a Japanese rice cake.  All the children gathered around a large cement vessel called an ‘usu,’ which held 3 pounds of steaming hot rice. The men in the family would march around the ‘usu’ in rhythm, pounding the rice with a huge mallet called a ‘kineh.’  This was a dramatic scene to witness because the men put their hands in the hot rice to turn it before the heavy mallet came down to pound it.  The end product was a huge ball of hot, sticky rice, which the children would then roll into many small rice cakes.

On New Year’s Day these rice cakes were served in a fish broth along with fish cakes and spinach.  Other New Year’s Day delicacies were fresh lobster, crab, good luck beans, sushi, sashimi, squid, pickled radish, fresh fruits and rice. As we devoured the food we read the previous year’s resolutions and made an accounting of our efforts.  Then each member of the family announced new resolutions for the upcoming year as a parent recorded them.

Along with the Japanese feast, another memorable tradition associated with this holiday was making New Year’s Day the model for the rest of the year. For example, I can still hear my grandmother, Sono Ushio say, “Whatever happens on New Year’s Day will happen the rest of the year.” 

If you were happy on New Year’s Day, you would be happy the rest of the year.

If you worked hard on New Year’s Day, you would work hard the rest of the year.

If family relationships were harmonious on New Year’s Day, there would be harmony all year long.

If your home was clean on New Year’s Day, your home would be clean all year.

We asked forgiveness of people we had wronged and made amends with all friends and family members.

All debts were paid.

All borrowed items were returned to their rightful owner.

Therefore, everyone tried their hardest to make New Year’s Day perfect in every way.

It was a challenge, but well worth the effort. To this day, we still carry on these Japanese traditions.  We feast all day and strive to improve our family relationships and develop stronger character traits.

I am grateful for my Japanese heritage. The lessons my grandparents taught me have had a profound, positive impact on my life. My hope is that my own children will carry on these Japanese traditions and customs.           —Shauna Sono Ushio Frandsen