No one in my family is quite sure where the Virginia peanuts came from, or why my grandmother started giving them to us; our family doesn’t have any ties to Virginia, nor do I ever remember her talking about them.
One year they were just there, tucked into gift bags at a family gathering outside Chicago, and then every year after. (I’ve come to learn the peanuts are known for their distinctive size, flavor and crunch, which can be attributed to the sandy soil where they grow.)
Christmas was my grandmother’s favorite holiday, and since her death six years ago, I’ve taken to ordering them for myself this time of year: one tin of salted and another chocolate-covered, the same ones she would give us. It’s become a small way of honoring the big role she played in my life.
Responders to a recent Times questionnaire asking readers about their traditions revealed ones of similarly murky origins. For Laurie Bennett of Ridgewood, Queens, it’s singing to the turkey with her sister as it roasts outside. The siblings’ set list includes “We Gather Together” and “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come.” (And yes, according to Ms. Bennett, it does make the turkey taste better.)
Roni Alexander, of Tempe, Ariz., has an annual contest with her family to see who can bring the wackiest wine label — past favorites include 7 Deadly Zins and Cat’s Pee on a Gooseberry Bush — to Thanksgiving dinner.
For Jennifer Yee of Garden City, N.Y., there are always three items on her Chinese American family’s holiday table: chopped liver, lox and rugelach. The tradition goes back to Yee’s grandfather, who emigrated to the U.S. from Guangdong in the 1920s. Though they celebrate Christmas as Presbyterians, she said, he loved exposing his family to different cuisines, and in the 1950s and ’60s, often took them to visit the delicatessens on Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
Others assert their individuality through home décor. To honor the winter solstice, Marcia Bartusiak, a retired science writer in Sudbury, Mass., decorates the ficus tree in her dining room with blue LED lights and space-themed ornaments — “stars, suns, moons, and even a U.F.O.” One exception: a treasured ornament from her mother of a doll in traditional Polish dress — a lone human figure adrift amid celestial chaos.
Tracey Rogers, of San Francisco, has had her own unusual tree-topper since childhood: a half-naked doll, lovingly referred to as “Glitter-Boob Sindy.” Though presumably clothed at one point, “she was topless, but had been dipped in glue and glittered,” Ms. Rogers said of the doll, and wore “a tulle tutu with random red and pink bows attached to it.” (A set of ballet shoes, sadly, has been lost to time.) Sindy, who lives with Rogers’ 94-year-old mother in London, still takes her treasured spot every year — but now, her granddaughter does the honors.
Other traditions offer comfort to those who struggle with the complicated emotions this time of year can bring. Starting the day after Thanksgiving, Sarah Di Troia of Cambridge, Mass., plays on repeat Aimee Mann’s melancholic holiday collection “One More Drifter in the Snow” — an album her adult children jokingly refer to as “Wicked Bummer Christmas.” For Ms. Di Troia, its pensiveness allows her to honor more painful memories, including the loss of her brother when he was 25, and to remember that this time of the year can “be a backdrop to more than one feeling.”
A little literature, too, can go a long way. For many years, Miriam Wolf, of Portland, Ore., and her daughter have celebrated the holidays at the Sylvia Beach Hotel, a book-themed getaway on the Oregon coast. “We spend the day hiking in a misty green coastal forest, and the evening reading in the hotel’s expansive library,” she said. “We have our holiday meal at whatever Thai or Chinese restaurant is open on Christmas Day. It’s as low-key and peaceful as Christmas gets.”
And for nearly two decades, Michael Quinn of Brooklyn has checked out the same copy of the Beat poet Diane di Prima’s 1961 book “Dinners and Nightmares.” An experimental mix of poetic styles, it describes in detail meals cooked for bohemian friends and lovers, and the way they move in and out of her life.
According to Mr. Quinn, who has long hosted holiday dinners of his own for friends and chosen family, “It really resonates with me — that idea of feeding everyone, being fed by the community that you’re fostering.”
“It just puts you in the mood for the holidays,” he continued, “because it reminds you of how central those relationships are in sustaining a life.”
Which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. This year, as always, I’m looking forward to my peanuts — the satisfying hiss of the vacuum seal opening, rubbing excess salt from my fingers, the simple act of remembering my grandmother. That’s the real beauty of traditions: They allow us to touch the past while making it anew.
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