My (Not So Unique) Holiday Family Traditions Essay

When our Sociology class was assigned to write or so family traditions, I instantly became nervous because I couldnt cogitate of iodin tradition off the top of my head that was particular and unique to my family. I sat there and wondered, should I tell the truth and reveal the point that my family doesnt have any traditions? Should I make one up and fake my way through the entire thing plainly to bump a good grade? Should I take someone elses family tradition and c whole it my own? As you can probably tell, I was completely stuck. I feel as though my family traditions ar ones that are shared with other families somewhat the world. The typical family traditions that Im referring to are about are during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. During Thanksgiving, we always have our annual family dinner party take in at my grandmothers house. All the women of the family cook unalike dishes such as jokester, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, etc. The women ordinaril y sit around the dinner table while the men of the family assemble in the backing room and watch TV, typically football. The children of the family ordinarily sit at a separate table and after they are done, they usually go outside(a) to play. Christmas traditions and the traditions of Thanksgiving are much in the same.Occasionally after anyone gets their stomachs full, we usually play a game called catch phrase. There is never a dull moment when we play this game. It is similar to charades in which you hold a device that shows you a playscript that you must describe to your teammates without wording the word directly. When I was assigned this essay, I went to my mother, hoping that we had a tradition that I effective overlooked. Needless to say, I was back at square one, she couldnt think of any that were unique I began to look to my peers for process, which resulted in the usual, Just say something obvious, like, On the twenty-fifth day of December, my family opens present s that are left underneath an imitative tree by an obese man who has some strange coercion with red clothes and non-existent animals who can fly That wasnt much help either. In comparison to the traditional Caucasian holiday traditions, I researched via meshwork on the African American holiday traditions. A common account that I found was that Todays Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are just a taste of how African Americans used to eat. Before you slice into that odoriferous potato pie, douse those greens in hot sauce or cut a edible corner of macaroni and cheese this holiday season, count on where those traditions came from.In the late 19thcentury, geography factored in how people celebrated the yuletide season. During this measure, African Americans passd mostly a rural existence, which translated into a farm-to-table lifestyle. I found a blog of two sisters discussing their African American culture during the holiday seasons. Sisters Norma denim and Carole Darden discu ssed their history and recipes in recounting African-American life and culture. Their grandmothers traditions were passed down to them in which they will pass them down to their children and so on. She lived on a dairy farm and wanted milk and cream in the familys dishes. A favorite dish was painted Christmas cookies, made with locomote water and orange-flower water. Norma will be preparing Thanksgiving dinner for her family in November. Shes been cooking since age 9. Her dinner table will have turkey with corn bread dressing on the side, many quarts of giblet gravy, totally cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. But in homage to her stepfather, shell make smoked oysters for an appetizer, corn and peas as a side dish as well as yams in a cast-iron pot, without marshmallows.Just as he taught her. We live in an age in which it is hard to spend time unneurotic as a family. Many families today wonder if having quality time together is a thing of the past. We are inordinately busy, for one thing, whether firm bread-winners or college students. Also, the definition of family has changed. We are dealing with new definitions and characterizations of the idea of family. approximately of us have traditional families. Some families have divorced, single, and/or remarried parents, creating a rather confusing family tree. Some people choose to live their lives simply, hardly may still be close enough to some friends to consider them family. Whatever the circumstances, many of us honestly dont go through how to celebrate together. We may even see the word tradition as something dulling and old, having no meaning for or application to us personally something usually being forced upon us. It is up to us to create new family traditions. Celebrating is non hard. We all know about celebrating and have some ways of doing it. The totally challenge is to find new ways. Why do we need to celebrate tradition? It gives us something to look forward to and makes a formal accoun t that there are some things in life to be thankful for.The notion of honoring tradition is unsettling for some people let alone creating new ones. We seem to think that traditions must be heavy and entangled ideas that had been around for cs of years and will be aroundfor a hundred more. In my opinion, this is not true. It need not be big or religious at all. I believe a tradition is something that you do once that feels good, so you do it again and again. Tradition is in all our lives in one way or another. Without participation in such activities there would be no family bond or pride. Being confused in these activities brings people closer and makes us understand who we are. Everything we do and every day of our lives we take part in a tradition in one form or another. After writing this paper, I go through that my family traditions may not be unique to others, but they are special to me and the members of my family and that is something that I will always cherish and hope to pass down to future generations.