When I was growing up my family developed traditions not only around the holidays but other times during the year as well. I'm not sure if we, as kids, realize how much we come to love them. Now that I'm older I can look back and see the familial patterns, and I smile when I think of them.
I used to love Saturday mornings. Especially in the Spring in North Missouri. My dad would start mowing the yard early in the morning, and my sisters and I would play outside all day long. I think there's a picture somewhere of me in pigtails sitting on top of the swingset we had in our backyard. We weren't afraid of anything back then. Then my dad would invariably get the patio and grill ready for what we would have for dinner later in the day, and that is why to this day I love the smell of charcoal as the coals are turning white. I watched him clean fish that he had caught while out on his boat at one of the local lakes, I didn't really participate too much in the cleaning as much as just the observation of it all. They're squishy and I couldnt bear to look at their open eyes. But I will say this, the dinner they created was absolutely delicious.
We were pretty creative in thinking of fun things to do, especially when the weather turned even warmer. We had a hose with a sprayer on the end of it, so we wound a rubber band around the handle of the sprayer so it would have a continous blast of water going, and then tossed the hose over a tree branch. Voila! A sprinkler you could run under. How fun is that?
I know my sister Melissa (she's the one on the left in the photo, circa 1975) will love me for including this one: we used to play inside moving boxes. I mean the really big wardrobe type, that we could climb inside of, cut out an opening in the front that went halfway down, and then pretend we had our own business that you could visit at that window. We did this in the front yard, which completely cracks me up that we never thought it might look strange to the neighbors and passersby.
They say your friends are your chosen family, and I couldn't agree more. With my family spread out in between coasts, my friends are who I can see more often. Today my chosen family and I are going to see Silent House, I think there is only one of us that doesn't care for scary movies, so he'll be waiting for us after the movie to move along into the tradition we've created over the last few years, Joes Crab Shack. What better way to discuss a movie than over crab legs!
Winter seems to be lingering in Dallas, at least for today. Overcast and chilly makes for a great day to see a movie. Of course Monday it's supposed to be 80 degrees. Welcome to North TX.
Do you have favorite traditions that you still participate in even today?
See you soon friend,
Tiffany
PS I think I have some new friends that have heard about Breakfast At Tiffanys. Some ducks were quacking loud enough outside my window to wake me up this morning. I SWEAR I heard one of them say, "dude just keep quacking, she'll feed us if she wakes up. Trust me". He was right.
