Family traditions. Many have them, many don’t. This isn’t technically a 50×50 countdown item, but being able to spend time with my sister and Mom is always a good time. My niece joined us too and when the four of us get together, hilarity ensues.

While our family doesn’t have many, they have a few that are a little – odd. Although, growing up, I didn’t realize they were different because our circle was comprised of other families that played host to the same traditions (as often families do), and we all did the same ones! My Mom and Dad adopted traditions from both their households and blended the French Canadian and Swedish sides together for a hodgepodge of loveliness that was my childhood.

At the end of November, we got together to make tourtière, or as we call it, meat pie. It is a French-Canadian traditional dish made up of two kinds of meat, potatoes, onions, seasoning, baked inside a pie shell. Easy peasy. We eat it with ketchup, olives, and pickles. Our meat pie is made up of ground pork and ground beef. Fortunately, my sister works at a butcher shop, so we have access to the best meat available.

Shameless plug for butcher shops everywhere… Stop buying meat at the grocery store. In most cases, you will find meat is less expensive at a butcher shop. Case in point? I pay LESS for a pound of high-quality bacon at her shop than I would at the grocery store. On average, a pound of bacon is between seven and eight dollars. Ground beef? Less. Around $6 a pound AND it is meat from a single animal. The grocery store is always multiple animals.

But I digress… I also learned a little math (haha). My brain sometimes is a bit stunted. My sister said, “I have a six pounds of each meat.” Good old grey matter interpreted this as “Six pounds TOTAL.” This was incorrect. 6+6=12 not 6+6=6

I had to stop at the store and pick up another five pounds of potatoes.

Twelve pounds of meat, fifteen pounds of potatoes, two large onions, ten cups of flour, two pounds of lard, eight large pie tins, and two mini pie tins, eight extra large zipper bags, and our day was done!

The recipe we use was my Grand Mémère’s, my Dad’s grandmother. How long it has been in the family is unknown to me, but I assume a long time. From as long as I can remember, meat pie was a Christmas tradition. We always had it for dinner on Christmas Eve. My Mom learned to make them from Grand Mémère, we watched my Mom make them and we learned to make them (we being my sister and myself). I can only hope my son and my niece carry on the tradition.

Another tradition my family had growing up involved our Christmas stockings. We didn’t hang them on Christmas eve, like most families, we hung them on New Year’s Eve. Why this was remains unclear. Though, if I had to guess, I think it may have been because my Dad came from a large family. His father had seven or eight siblings. The families all gathered with their children on Christmas Eve and attended Midnight Mass. Post mass, they went to Grand Mémère’s home, ate, and opened gifts until morning. Dad said the tree was stacked half high with gifts. It was probably too much to do stockings as well, so they deferred the until New Year’s.

His siblings carried the tradition forward. For us, the Angel came down off the tree and filled our stockings, for our cousins, it was the Baby Jesus. My sister continued the Angel (as she had our family decorations) and for us, the Nutcracker fills our son’s stocking.

Swedish traditions included making Pepparkakor, tradition Swedish gingerbread. Gramma’s recipe makes a ton, which I’ve found is fantastic to have frozen for late night additions to my coffee habit. My Gramma moved in my with my family in the late 1980’s which meant we got the privilege of spending every Christmas with her and that meant she baked us her most excellent buns on Christmas eve! This became part of our tradition too. THEY WERE AMAZING. While I’ve come close to duplicating them, I’ve never gotten them quite perfect. We joke that she spit in them, but as any kid knows, a grandmother’s secret ingredient in anything she makes is love.

We also always tucked paper Swedish flags into our tree. I don’t know where they came from, but they were always there, near the top, front and centre. We were proud of our Swedish heritage. We also had Swedish chimes that tinkled whenever the candles were lit. While I don’t think there were specifically of Swedish origin, they again, were a tradition of my Mom’s that we adopted. Opening a gift on Christmas eve was also something we did, as Mom’s family always opened their gifts Christmas eve, save for the gifts the Tompte brought!

Who is the Tomte? He is the Christmas gnome! Traditionally, he was a household spirit who protected the farm and the animals, but sort of evolved into a Santa Claus like figure. We knew him as Christmas elf who was cheeky and kind but would play tricks if we were naughty. Of course, we were never naughty!

Now my little family has a hodgepodge. We eat ham on Christmas eve (my husband’s family tradition), I bake all kinds of cookies, the Nutcracker fills one stocking, Santa fills the other. The Tomte brings a gift, Santa leaves a gift. Some years we have Gramma’s buns, other years, the Italian Bakery bakes the buns for us! We have LOTS of trees (though less than we used to), one of which is ladder tree filled with a Christmas village. One of which my son and I curated – an idea that came to me early one morning and he and I skipped off to Michael’s before school and followed it with breakfast at McDonald’s.

Whatever your traditions are, I hope they fill you with joy, not too many headaches, and the peace of the season.