The Underwood's Family Traditions

Food is the core for many Underwood family traditions. Family celebrations range from traditional holiday’s to made-up traditional days. They are celebrated with our parent’s basic family traditions and little spice from the younger generation. Though we have full family traditions we also have individual traditions. For years now, Sunday mornings have a tradition of coffee and bunch with my mom and me. It’s a time that we can enjoy each others company and talk. Sunday BBQ’s are not questionable they are required by my in-laws. It is a great way for three generations to come together, laugh, joke and smile with BBQ sauce on our faces. For the traditional holidays such as Easter, Thanksgivings and Christmas we stick with a ham or a turkey and nothing really out of the ordinary. The true tradition for these holidays is that my mother-in-law bakes every adult their own pie. That’s right a whole pie all to my self three times a year. We have definitely added our own traditions to these Holidays. For Easter we take the hard boiled eggs and a few raw one and play a messy game of softball in the field close by. For Thanksgiving we go bowling with friends and family members. For Christmas we have a tradition of loosing a few gifts on purpose to pull out a couple days later. O.K. you caught me that ones not an actual tradition but it should be because it happens every year. The true Christmas tradition is I make the breakfast cinnamon rolls. This tradition because about 10 years ago when I thought I would bake fresh cinnamon rolls in the morning to help wake everyone up. The issue that came up was I used cumin instead of cinnamon so the family woke up to a taco smell. Our last but most important to me is for my sons birthday’s. Every year on their birthday I bake them their favorite birthday cake. Now that they are grown I have asked them if they want a store bought cake and every year they say “no mom I want you to make me one”. Family tradition may start as a hand down but with alteration and combining two family traditions to one comes even grater traditions which create lasting memories.

Though we do have family traditions we also have a few friend traditions. We lived away from family for about two years and had to create our own family among our friends. We had Mexican poker nights that always involved cards, potlucks and memories being made.