Autumn Blog Challenge: Childhood Family Traditions

I would like to say that my family practiced a great many traditions when I was growing up. I am sad to say that this was not the case. Don’t get me wrong, we did have certain things that held true with very year that passed. We still do. It was just nothing like the youngest child putting the star on the top of the tree at Christmas, baking chocolate chip cookies, or even hosting a family game night. My family didn’t even goes as far as having dinner at the table together. There was love in that house though and that is what mattered. We just had our own unique way of cultivating certain practices.

Here are some of the things that come to mind when I think of my childhood traditions:

It is a tradition to name children after someone else in the family. I am named after my grandmother. My sister, Jo Ann, is named after her aunt (which worked out well because my dad likes boys names for girls). My brother is named after my grandfather. My other brother is named after his uncle. I could keep going, but I’ll stop there.
Mom can’t stand the anticipation so we would always end up opening most of our gifts on Christmas Eve. Santa’s presents usually waited.
My dad was a truck driver and I used to ride with him to be loaded and unloaded just so I could spend as much time with him as I could.
It’s always a tradition to see Daddy hidden in a corner somewhere at any holiday get together with his Rubik’s cube in hand.
At any family function my Aunt Billie is either going to bring deer meatloaf, the best pineapple-upside-down-cake in the world, or both!
My mother collects Santa Claus’, and while I pretty much loath the site of them at this point, it has become a tradition that every grandchild select one that will go to them when my mother is gone. My son will pick his out this year!
The back-to-school tradition is probably my favorite. My mom always made back-to-school shopping a big deal. I never got much when it came to clothing, because we didn’t have a lot when I was growing up. She knew I loved school supplies though, and they are cheap, so I always had a giant collection of pens and pencils when I was growing up.
My mother made every Halloween costume I ever had when I was little. I can see her bleeding fingers now.
I don’t know if you call this a tradition or not, but you could always find my mother involved in whatever activity was going on at school. If she wasn’t planning a Fall festival, she was building a float or sewing ridiculous colorguard costumes. While she was a mean ol’ Miss Sue, there were some kids who would call her a hero.
A little tradition I had with my grandmother were sleepovers. We had kind of a routine that we would follow. She’d always cut me bologna pieces and leave them in a little olive colored bowl. I would take that and a Swiss round and sit on the rug in front of her TV while she sat in the recliner behind me. We’d watch the Golden Girls, General Hospital, Maury Povich, and the local gospel station. She would show me how to crochet or we would work on sewing quilt pieces. We’d usually have Chef Boyardee and watermelon for dinner. Then she would pull out the quilts she had made over the years and show them to me. Just before bed she would sit down and go through photo albums with me and tell me who everyone was in each photo and what they were doing. Then she would put me to bed on the couch, cover with and a big orange and black quilt she had made, place a chair in front of me so I wouldn’t roll out onto the floor, and then light a green lamp so I could see my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. She would wake me the next morning with sausage on the stove, biscuits in the oven, and a warm wash cloth in her hand to wash my face. It was definitely easy to wake up at Mamaw’s house.

As you can tell my family wasn’t very big on typical traditions. It’s not like I don’t have things to remember though. My parents were pretty good about providing occasions for long-lasting memories. So, while I may not have a baby book to look back on, or a journal written by my mother, or a collection of Christmas ornaments, I do have the memories of long road trips, learning to work a Rubik’s cube, winning best Halloween costume, and so much more!

What are some childhood traditions that you remember?