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Traditions: Spirit of the Sardines.


Saturday focus on this blog during the holidays is tradition.  Traditions that transmit values, beliefs history. 

I tend to lose phone service as I drive around the sandhills; transmission dropped in the low spots.  An inconvenience but also a reminder to me of how much I depend on it.


We tend to lose the transmission in the low spots and the busy times of our lives.  It takes intentional action to keep the transmission of tradition.

It is critical this holiday season not to drop those critical opportunities to transmit values, beliefs and history to our children and families.

Thanksgiving Eve is rich with these in our family.  A tradition that I continue in my family is having Mustard Sardines and Crackers the night before.  My Mom began this tradition to share an experience and appreciate all that we have in our lives.

My mother and her sister were alone on one Thanksgiving while they were in high school.  Their Mom was in the hospital and Dad was gone.  In the troughs poverty...they wanted to have something special and scrounged the house for some pennies to head to the store with.  As they perused the grocery store aisles they looked for something they had never had before and left with a can of mustard sardines and sack of crackers.

Arriving home, they set the table, poured water in their glass and ceremoniously ate the sardines and crackers alone; going to bed with half full bellies.

So my mother would gather six girls around the table of sardines and crackers, share the story and remind us that many many children go to bed hungry on Thanksgiving and not to forget our blessings.  We complained and I have never really eaten them.  As an adolescent, I just thought it was stupid.

David and I adopted this tradition after Mom mailed them to our house on our first Thanksgiving and we have been eating them together for 23 years.  

Last year I mailed my oldest his can of sardines and pray they carry the spirit of the sardines on to share with their children.

It's not the sardines...they are just the tool.  The tool to pass on gratefulness, humbleness and a reminder to not take our blessings for granted.

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