Traditions!

Traditions~we all have traditions we follow throughout the year. Mostly, we have traditions we follow during this time of the year. Maybe, it's an evening spent with friends or a luncheon laced with gift exchanges. But, there are those things we do within our family that are the most important and remembered. How does one start a tradition? Just by repeating it year after year. Every year for the past (who knows how many) years, our son has given a gift to his fellow company personnel. And now every year, it is the same thing......... We take the recipe from this book.
And on the recipe page, we make notes--lots of notes since the first year we ran out of ingredients and had to make a grocery store run.
We gather the supplies. We need jars--this year 24; some years, it has been 36 or more.
Bags of sugar
Tasty walnuts.......
Boxes of cocoa.......
Pounds of flour........
And we begin the assembly. There are some years when granddaughter would assist, but this year she was in the midst of her college finals and just too busy. But, she and I had worked out a method!
It certainly helped when we found these jar holders. The first few years, we used an old funnel that we had cut off the spout.
Pour in the sugar, flour, baking soda and powder, salt--shake it down. Still must add
chopped walnuts.......
Chocolate chips.......
All filled and ready to be capped off with a fancy square of fabric. Screw down the top
and slap on a label to tell how to assemble the brownie mix. Now, as the numerous years have progressed, this is always a wonder--do the recipients really enjoy receiving this -traditional- gift each year? Our son says yes; they look forward to the brownie jar sitting on their desk--they know they're not forgotten. Maybe, this is a tradition in their households--either bake up the mix or see how many jars they can acquire!!
December 16 is also a day we remember because it brings up another tradition--thanking God that we have a wonderful life. December 16, 1976 was the day we lost our home, cars and all personal possessions to a fire--new traditions were begun that day--ones that will be passed along to generations to come.