Celebrating the Holidays

Celebrating the Holidays

We love celebrating the holidays with glorious food, especially when everyone is encouraged to jump and lend a hand. Mark usually makes his Grandma Dorothy’s World Famous Coconut Bars (people tell us they dream about them), but he was pretty proud when he learned to make pumpkin pie.

Evolving Traditions

Our family tends to cherish certain traditions rather than launching a big experiment each year, but we also embrace evolving and incorporating each other’s ideas. For example, early in our marriage, Mark started making oyster soup every Christmas. We were still in college, and so we kept it pretty simple. The budget was tight, so our “recipe” included oysters, milk, butter, plus a little salt and pepper. Over the years, I started adding onion, and enriching it into a béchamel. Years later, our daughter’s husband added potatoes to create a heartier version.

Our sister-in-law, Allie, loves Roasted Leg of Lamb. As a result, it now regularly makes it into the menu when celebrating the holidays, particularly Thanksgiving and or Christmas.

Each year, preparing the meal is a group affair, cooking together and feeling the anticipation build as the aromas swirl around us. For us, celebrating the holidays is not about sweat and stress striving to impress. It is about gathering with the people we love and enjoying each other’s company as we catch up and cook together.