Main Piece

“Every Christmas, our house becomes a ‘candy factory’ – at some point when I was growing up, my mom found recipes for chocolate fudge, peanut butter toffee fudge, and peppermint bark, tweaked some of them so they didn’t have quite as many sticks of butter and cups of sugar, and started making them to give to neighbors and family. My dad started bringing them to work to give to his coworkers too, and now it’s something everyone looks forward to getting from us each year. My brother and I started helping make them pretty early on, at least since I was in eighth grade, and it’s become a key Christmas tradition – responsibility, even – to share with our mom every year.”

Interpretation

Informant’s Interpretation: This tradition holds primary relevance to informant as a family tradition. She likes to spend the time with her mom, but notes that since the whole thing puts a stress on her mom, helping can sometimes “feel more like a duty than a fun cozy Christmas tradition.” However, she notes that she still heavily associates this with how her family celebrates Christmas and thus enjoys it.

Personal Interpretation: I find this to be a classic example of a family Christmas tradition–particularly so because other families recognize it as such and come to enforce the idea of the tradition from a slightly-external perspective. While associated with a religious holiday, I don’t see any particular direct connection to Christian tradition other than perhaps the origins of the types of cookies. That said, it feels pretty removed from any religious context and has more to do with the time of year and family-centric association than anything else.

Background

Informant is a 21 year old college student raised in Rancho Bernardo, California. She is female-presenting, white, and of European descent.