Family traditions are steep when it comes to food. Growing up in San Diego, especially in my teen years our Christmas traditions for food was as follows: the morning usually began with coffee and it was hard to wake up because there were many years that we attended midnight services. We would often have a session of gift opening while the breakfast cooked and by the time it was ready the whole house smelled like sausage casserole. We would get to eat many helpings while cleaning up the wrapping paper. Then after everything was tidy, we would begin to set up, assemble, or otherwise 'play' with the new things we just were gifted. Magically (and I say magically because I don't ever remember helping) there would be deli platters set out on our table with all sorts of cheese, bread and meats to make sandwiches. These trays would stay all day long along with platters of home made cookies. I really appreciated the all day feast situation because I could invite my friends to stop by any time, people came and went all afternoon. The cooking was minimal having all been prepared beforehand. The cookies included the coconut haystacks, herseys kisses snickerdoodles, powdered sugar nusse balls, and butterscotch bars!
I saw recently a TV show about how to preserve recipes that were hand written onto tea towels. What a clever idea! Below is an image of my mom's handwritten version of our family breakfast casserole. It has now been passed on to my daughter and she makes this for her circle and I couldn't feel more love in the tradition moving on....yum and thank you to all the moms and dads that share special treats at this time of year.
