It's Still All About Family

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Since Joel's family and my family live in different states, we split up Christmas and Thanksgiving.  This year we had Thanksgiving with my family, so we will have Christmas with Joel's family and then see my family over New Year's.  Next year, we will have Thanksgiving with Joel's family and Christmas with mine and so on.  We like this set up because it allows us to see everyone, and we're not always going to Thanksgiving or Christmas with the same family.  On the other hand, it is hard to avoid the feeling of homesickness that accompanies a big holiday with someone else's family.  Don't get me wrong, I love my in-laws (and I'm sure Joel would say the same...right?  right?), but everyone's family celebrates holidays slightly differently.

One way that Joel and I have helped ease our homesickness is by cooking the food that we grew up with.  Joel has to have lumpia at Thanksgiving because it's just not a holiday for him without it, so we made them in Atlanta this year and shared them with my family.  My mom and I typically bake about a million cookies to give away over Christmas, and I do that every year for my co-workers.  My mom also always bakes a pecan pie for Thanksgiving every year, so I attemped one (with disastrous results) last year when we had Thanksgiving with Joel's parents.

This year, as usual, I dug out the email that mom sent me with all of the cookie recipes for Christmas and got to baking.  I made four different things to share with my office (Ad Hoc chocolate chip cookies*, chocolate peanut butter chip cookies, sugar cookies, and haystacks).  The smell of the haystacks, and the feel of rolling out sugar cookie dough immediately made me feel like I was home.  Even though I won't see my family on December 25th, I've already conjured them up in my heart, and I am with them in spirit.  Every time I share the joy of The Baking with someone new, I feel some sense of home again. 

I know that when Joel and I start a family, we'll be able to pass down a really cool mix of traditions through our food, and it is one of the things in the future that I am most excited about. 

What food traditions always take you home?

*This chocolate chip cookie recipe is reason enough to buy the book.  Seriously.  Delicious.