This week's #52 Ancestors prompt was "Cultural Traditions." I was clueless (as I frequently am.) In our family, we don't really have any cultural traditions that have been handed down.
We've never had any big holiday traditions. Although there are things we always do the same each holiday, these are not really cultural traditions. It's mainly just the things we've created over the past years. None of these things can be really tracked back to our ancestral culture.
Some people have specific ornaments they put on their trees that represent their culture. We never did. Some people have special dishes they fix from recipes handed down through the generations. We never did. When I got married, we decided to start our own traditions. But most of those didn't survive and none of them came from our cultural roots.
Maybe it was because, as kids, we didn't really know what our culture was. We had some Southern roots, but growing up in Chicago, we sure didn't feel Southern. My mom's paternal family was from Eastern Europe. But her dad died when she was a child, and we weren't close to that side of the family. So, no traditions were passed down. My dad's family had Eastern European, English, and Scottish roots. But again, most of that family lived in Iowa, and we weren't close. So, none of those traditions were passed down.
I suspect that many families have encountered the same thing. Distance from their cultures resulted in a lack of traditions being passed down. It's a bit sad.
Yep, true in my family, too. My mother was southern and we did eat some southern food but living in California, we did not feel southern. Dad's side was German but no traditions there. My husband has some Swedish traditions and I wrote a bit about that.
ReplyDelete