GRANDMA'S PICKLES!!

Christmas Eve has always been one of our families favorites. Family, that didn't see eachother but once a year, got together. Special dishes & food were served! Fun games were played. And laughter was heard. As the years have gone by, people & families have changed, and so have traditions.
Christmas Eve as a child was always anticipated with much excitement. I remember getting dressed as a kid, just watching the clock tick till mom and dad said it was time to leave for our Great Aunt's house. I am sure that my parents were just as excited to go, they would not have to listen to us asking any longer, "Are we leaving yet?" "Is it time?"
It wasn't about the presents. (Not that we didn't like presents, but we didn't exchange any on Christmas eve.) It was about the FAMILY and FOOD!! The table was layered with everyone's special dishes. Potatoes, Grandpa's favorite sweet potatoes, ham, turkey, salads, fruits, fresh veggies, stuffing, jello, pudding, Aunt's fruit salad, olives, pies and the list goes on. The most anticipated food I looked forward to was GRANDMA'S HOMEMADE PICKLES!! When Grandma broke out those pickles, everyone gathered around. Now that was pretty scary for there was usually about 20 of us that would gather together for Christmas Eve. No one could make pickles like my Grandma! I can't explain to anyone how absolutley scrumptious they were. My poor Grandma would barely get into the door without one of us asking her if she remembered the pickles. "Oh yes!" She would say. "I brought two!!" She knew that one jar would never be enough. 3/4 of the time the pickles she cut up for dinner were gone before we sat down as a family. (That's where the other jar came into place.) It always seemed "someone" would HAAAAAAAAVE TOOOO walk by the set table, before dinner was served. Amazing how the pickles kept disappearing!
Time has gone by.... Families have grown.... Society has changed.... Traditions have been altered. Many years have gone by and the Christmas Eve Dinner Tradition is no longer what it was. People changed. The tradition altered a little for some years to Great Grandma's house on Christmas Eve for snacks. Then Great Grandma went home to the Lord.... Tradition changed a little again. It couldn't be at Great Grandma's any longer.
Grandma's pickles stopped. I asked Grandma a couple years ago what had happened to her pickles. She looked at me and said, "No one was eating them fast enough.... They went bad." First it was sad to hear her say that, but then I thought about all the GREAT memories growing up, with extended family and eating GRANDMA'S FAMOUS PICKLES!! No one else had that priveledge! It is something that we will always remember and appreciate for years to come!
Today, Christmas Eve is at my home. A new tradition which began about 7 years ago. I want my kids and nephew and nieces to have memories of GREAT FOOD at Auntie's house on Christmas Eve. Without Grandma's famous pickles, I had to finally experiment enough to find a brand of pickles that "will do" from the grocery store.
Nothing will ever take away from our family's GREAT memories of past traditions, even as we create new ones! :0)