Sledding with your family. Helping your mom decorate the house. Watching your dad puzzle over tangled outdoor holiday lights. Making meals and memories with your grandparents. For most of us, threads of nostalgia weave throughout the holidays. Have you ever stopped to consider the connections between your holiday traditions of the past and present? A few team members at Aronson Advertising weighed this question.
A Heirloom Family Recipe
Says Sarah S., “Ever since I was about 12 years old, I would go to my Nonna’s house sometime in December, and we would make handmade stuffed mostaccioli for our family Christmas dinner. My Nonna was Italian, and this was a dish passed down through her family. It was always something I looked forward to. We would sit around the table with Christmas music playing in the background, stuffing the individual noodles, and she and my grandpa would share stories and shenanigans from when my dad and aunt were young.
When we stopped doing this together in 2020, it was very hard for me, and for about two years now, I’ve been making that pasta for our family Christmas to carry on the tradition. This year, I will be involving my four-year-old as a helper for the first time.
Food is so important to me. Passing down a family recipe is like passing down an heirloom. Meals are moments for us to gather together and make memories, and I believe passing down recipes is a great way to keep traditions and memories alive.”
Tracing Family History
It’s fascinating to consider the generations of dining tables occupied by ancestors enjoying heirloom recipes. Ancestral knowledge isn’t always tangible, however.
Says John D., “For this Thanksgiving, my brother gave a presentation where he traced our family ancestry all the way back to Western Prussia in the 1600s. The craziest discovery was finding records that suggest my great great great great grandfather was born in Southwest France, joined Napoleon’s army, traveled to Prussia, met and married my great great great great grandmother, and settled there to never return to his homeland.”
Not Quite the End of an Era
Napoleon defined an era, and Black Friday shopping defines another.
Says Charlie B., “It was a tradition unlike any other. It started in the mid-to-late 90s, where every Thanksgiving morning, I headed out to the store to grab a 10-pound newspaper, which included ads for every store known to man. Did I buy just one? Nope, had to get 2. One for everyone to pass around and one to sit patiently in the car for later that night. Then, at 1 a.m., the fun began. Off we’d go to stand in line for hours at whichever place had the big ticket item. Maybe it was a TV. Or possibly a new gaming console. Either way, we knew there would be pushing and shoving, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.
Fast forward many, many years, and the paper is now $7 and almost non-existent. Everything is done online, and the thrill of the hunt is gone. However, now that I have kids who are old enough, our circle-of-life scenario presented them the opportunity to experience what Dad did every year (aside from abandoning his family for a $10 DVD).
And sure enough, three years ago, they said they wanted to give it a shot. So I woke them up at 5 a.m. (they got to sleep in), and off we went. I don’t remember them getting much, but they got to stand in line, see a slightly larger crowd than normal, and run over someone with their cart. So while it might not be as great as it was, the tradition still lives on.”
From recipes passed down through generations to holiday shopping, memories are being made each year. Traditions begun this year, perhaps inspired by a childhood holiday memory, may continue for years or even generations. Take a moment to consider the parallels between your own memories, then and now. Perhaps you’ll start something new!
Interested in being part of what’s next at our company? We’d love to have you on the team. See our available positions here.