What Stayed the Same

General

I conducted a phone interview with my grandparents while designing this website, and this was definitely the hardest subject to discuss. In my grandmother's words, "That's a really hard question because so much has changed"! We ended up only finding a couple traditional subjects that were passed down from generation to generation. My grandmother joked that we still live in the United States, people still have pets, and we all still live on Earth, though we thought that was a tad bit too general. In all seriousness though, we have passed down holiday and food traditions.

Holidays

What has stayed the same between our families is the fact that we've always loved spending time together. Before COVID-19, we'd go to Illinois for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthdays, and we'd bring food, presents, and books and games for the car to keep us occupied for a good few hours. Upon arrival, we'd greet everyone with a hug and present the food and gifts. We'd chat with each other, show pictures and videos of things we accomplished in between visits, new updates in our lives, stories and jokes. We'd eat dinner, with grandpa praying as the head of that household, and then we'd dig in! We recently agreed to quarantine for two weeks so we could see each other for Thanksgiving 2020!

Food

Typically, grandma makes candied sweet potatoes , turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and other marvelous dishes, especially on Thanksgiving. My mom loves my grandma's sweet potatoes; they're always her favorite. When my dad was little, my grandma would cook a lot of Italian food to make her Italian husband happy, so this tradition got passed down to our family, as my mother takes a lot of pleasure in making both an Italian and Filipino cuisine, which is what she grew up with, as she grew up in the Philippines.