52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 50: Tradition

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

This is a tough meme. I can’t think of any tradition that we have in our family. It seems that each generation tried to make holidays and other events “their own” and did not necessarily pass on old traditions.

On my father’s side, his parents were Roman Catholic, and maybe that was a tradition passed down. When we were children, our father took us to church (our mother wasn’t Catholic), and later I took my younger siblings. But none of my siblings carried on being Catholic. I was the only one who married in the Church.

On my mother’s side, I would say some food items we ate were passed down. We always had cornbread dressing in our turkey at Thanksgiving. But most of us kids resisted eating greens and black-eyed peas growing up. Of course, now, we love them. Maybe it was just a kid thing, not wanting to eat weird vegetables that were not more traditional, such as green beans, peas, or corn. 

My mother-in-law was third-generation Swedish-American, and though she did not have much Swedish tradition growing up, she remembered the food served at Christmas, such as potato sausage, potato soup, and Glögg (mulled wine). She later found a Swedish cookbook and learned to make these items. She taught my husband and me, and we continue the tradition.

A batch of the Swedish Potato Sausage

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