A Dead Tradition

I know that once we hit a certain age we all begin to feel as if we are losing our family traditions. We feel like the old ways were being lost and the ties that bind us as a family are slowly but surely coming undone. Because this is coming from me, most people I know would ignore the following claim. I have always been the “adult” amongst my friends; therefore they ignore me when I talk about such things. They think I am overly sentimental about things.

Today I really wish I were that person, because yesterday I watched one of my families biggest traditions die. My grandmother and my mother have always been the ones to cook both Christmas and Thanksgiving Dinner. When I got older I joined. My mom was the only one of her siblings to ever take it upon herself to help my grandmother and I have been the only grandchild. I tried getting my goddaughter/cousin to help, but she would play around a little, help a little and then go on about her business.

For the last few years my grandmother has had a hard time cooking and this year my mother has gotten too disabled to do any of it by herself. I helped the best I could, doing all of the heavy lifting, stirring, etcetera, but my help was not enough, not with the amount of food that has to be cooked for my extremely large family.

Because of their health problems, my mother and grandmother decided that next year we would all pitch in and reserve a room at a restaurant or something. Now, I did not like this idea but, since I was the only one left to cook and refused to do it by myself, I resigned myself to agreeing to do it. .

At the time the decision was made, only one of my aunts was there and she agreed to this arrangement. All of this was making me real sad. The only person who really disagreed was another aunt of mine. She claims that she will help me do the cooking next year, but considering the woman is literally certifiable, I doubt she will actually do it. Apparently, I am the only one who cares. I should not say that, a few other people said they will help but my family is so full of broken promises that they cannot be trusted.

I know what you are thinking, if these people are so bad than why do I care about keeping this tradition? My answer is, I really do not know. They are MY family, what can I say. I love them no matter how dysfunctional they are. Actually, I think I want this more for my grandparents than I want it for myself. I truly feel that once they are gone my entire family will fall apart. I wonder if that will be such a bad thing. Families don’t mean shit anymore. Our society is too f@^#&$* selfish anymore to care about anything beyond their own self satisfaction.

I really hope everyone had a wonder turkey day. I am sorry this is such a downer, but my holiday kind of sucked.

Talisman