Tradition!

(Just call me Tevye!)  If there ever was a time for tradition, the holidays are it.  Even the most minute family traditions can give a sense of solidarity and take the eldest member back to childhood in a twinkle.  I realized the baton had been passed when I spoke yesterday to my son Pete in southern California.  He and his son, Jake (now seventeen), had been making cookies for gifts, using a recipe Pete had known from my holiday baking when he was a boy.  I had gotten that recipe from my mother and put it in a cookbook I'd made for my Kids.  Pete had been telling Jake how he and his brothers and sister would hang around in the kitchen, hoping to be the one chosen to lick the bowl, the spoon, the beater, or get the last dab of cookie dough.  That in itself seems to have become a tradition, as Jake couldn't keep his fingers out of the bowl, either.  Pete remembered that in our house (and not just at Christmas), very rarely were there store-bought cookies; I did a lot of baking in those days.  Pete talked about the wire cooling racks and waiting for that first batch to come out of the oven, to be eaten while the cookies were still warm (if not hot!).  It's nice to know that some things don't change.  Tradition!