Strong, functioning families have their own traditions and special identifiers. I’m not talking just about holidays and birthdays here—but those little daily things—sayings, secret nicknames and language, and activities that are unique to your family that all help to identify and bond a family together.
After nearly twenty years, our little family has all sorts of things that are unique to our family. Whenever a new person gets to know us well and becomes an “insider,” they are indoctrinated into our special sayings, the history of nicknames, created recipes, and other “secret” details. Since we’ve been through a divorce and reorganizing into two homes, some of our “inner world” has gone to both homes, while each household has also established its own bonding language and activities that add to the family lore.
As an example, I am an avid cook and like many families, many of our traditions revolve around food. We have special names for certain recipes and ways of fixing things—some dating back to when the children were quite small. One of our “famous” dishes is one we call “Basketball Chicken”—it’s really just a very slow-roasted whole chicken. The chicken cavity is stuffed with lemon and orange wedges, as well as some garlic. It is then sprinkled with salt and pepper and put in a low temperature oven—about 200-250 degrees. It is then allowed to roast slowly for several hours—the time it takes to go to a child’s basketball game. I invented the recipe years ago when we were having guests over for dinner and a basketball game got rescheduled. Since I couldn’t stay home and prepare the dinner as I’d planned, I took a chance at slow roasting while we went to the game. When we got home, the house smelled fabulous and the chicken was so tender and moist. All I had to do was fix the “sides” and we were good to go. Now, nearly a decade later, my kids will actually request “Basketball Chicken” and we all know exactly the recipe.
Cling to those special recipes, silly stories, family phrases, and insider’s lingo—they all help to make a family feel strong, unique, and connected.
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