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The holidays are all that and a bowl of nuts

‘Tis the season for beloved holiday traditions.

As I write this on Friday evening, for example, a large and exuberant crowd is gathering outside The Times Leader office on Fourth Street to watch the annual Martins Ferry Christmas Parade pass by. It follows similar events in Wheeling and St. Clairsville, with more to come in communities such as Bellaire, Bridgeport and Barnesville in the coming days.

And just like any couple or family does, my husband, Mike, and I have formed some of our holiday traditions over the years.

Some of them draw on activities or meals that our respective families have always enjoyed.

Others are just for us — and we may have already formed a new one this year.

Some of our family traditions include:

∫ Gathering with Mike’s parents and extended family at the home where he grew up. We always have ham sandwiches, his Grandma Sophie’s fruit salad and other goodies before we exchange gifts with one another around the tree.

That is a tradition that predates my entry into the family by decades, though it has changed a bit since I came along. Originally, that clan gathered at Sophie’s home on Christmas Eve for the same activities and usually attended midnight Mass.

∫ At our house — as was the case at my parents’ home until they passed a few years ago — the Christmas Day meal features ham, macaroni salad, a relish tray and fruit cookies, among some other treats that may vary from year to year. My brother, Larry, and I always exchange chocolate covered cherries, and we sometimes attempt to disguise them as some other type of gift. That trade is one that has been going on since I was 7 or 8 years old, and I’m not even sure I could tell the entire story that is behind it.

∫ Mike and I always make sure to give each other one gift at the end of the night on Christmas Eve. That dates back to him not being able to wait to give me a special gift that he had gotten me fairly early in our relationship, and it helps to build our anticipation for a day filled with festivities the following morning.

This year, we have added something new to our holiday table — at least it is new for him. It is, however, something that was a holiday staple in our house when I was young.

As we were cleaning out a pantry cabinet a couple of weeks ago, Mike came across a wooden bowl and a set of several nutcrackers and the accompanying tools. I explained to him that — whether we bought them at a store or my Dad and I gathered them up off the sides of local gravel roads — we always had a big bowl of nuts in their shells in our dining room around the holidays when I was a kid.

Mike seemed to like that idea, so we washed up the bowl and other equipment and decided we would keep them handy rather than storing them away again.

A few days later while we were out grocery shopping, it occurred to me to buy a bag of mixed nuts still in their shells. When we got home, I got that bowl and the nutcrackers back out and set things up on the table. Mike even found a little silverware caddy I had created a few months back at a make-and-take class offered by Kim Shutway at the Furniture Rescue store in Flushing to hold the nutcrackers and picks.

After we had all our groceries put away, we sat down at the table and I identified the various types of nuts in the bowl for him. Of course he recognized the walnuts, but he wasn’t sure which ones were almonds or a few other varieties.

Then, Mike reached into the bowl, grabbed a walnut and cracked it open. He used the tools to dig the “meat,” as my parents called it, out of the shell and gobbled it up.

It wasn’t until then that he told me he had never cracked a nut in its shell before. I had just assumed that since my father-in-law, Dexter, is always eating nuts, that this was something they had done in their house as well.

So, we each learned something new about life and about each other simply because we found an old bowl and some utensils in a cabinet.

We have been nibbling at those nuts ever since. I grab one or two when I walk by on a Saturday afternoon. Occasionally we have a couple after a meal.

And I intend to keep the bowl filled as guests arrive throughout the holiday season, so that my nephews and nieces can enjoy the experience as well.

So, as you go through the holiday season, don’t overlook the little things. Something just might come up that would make a great tradition for years to come.

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