Category Archives: Tradition
Ornaments & Tradition
My family has never done the color-coordinated Christmas tree thing. We give ornaments as gifts. I have ornaments that are as old as I am. My husband is not used to this tradition yet. When we were decorating this year, he starting grabbing random ornaments to decorate the tree. I told him to hang his …
Dough Ornaments
As I was going through my Christmas decorations I found a box containing stuff from my late grandma. Within it I found these: Holy shit! Dough ornaments! I remembered making these. It used some sort of modified cookie recipe. You made the dough, cut it into shapes, added a hole and then painted them with …
The Inevitable and What we Leave Behind
What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings …
Reconnecting with Family
We’re staying at my mother’s house. As usual, my mom and I got to talking about the Slovak Christmas traditions. She was attempting to write something up regarding our family traditions as she remembers them. Apparently there is an Eastern and Western Slovakia, both with their own separate customs. My mom’s family line contains immigrants …
Merry Christmas from an Atheist
People who know I’m an atheist are often surprised to hear that not only do I celebrate Christmas, but that to me it is the most important time of the year. It saddens me that some other atheists resort to petty stone-throwing when it comes to the holiday. Such blatant “I’m right and you’re wrong” …
Clove Apples
We had a tradition growing up on my mother’s side of the family. Every Christmas we would make a clove apple to give to our grandma. Eventually we started giving them to my paternal grandmother as well, but it was really a maternal family thing. What are clove apples? They are regular apples with cloves …
Still Leveling 