Thanksgiving week just ended in the U.S. and that means Christmas season is in full swing. For many families, that means food. I will be baking all month. Not only do I enjoy it, but I’ve learned I show love by feeding people.
Let me explain.
Many of our children were “food insecure” when they joined our family via adoption. Some were very malnourished and a couple were downright starving. (Think the size of an average 3-month old but at 19 months old.) Many had never been “full” in their lives. They didn’t know what that felt like, and the instinct to stop eating when full had been erased.
One of our girls came from a Russian orphanage where they were given scalding hot tea for a snack. For 1-year-olds. When I was able to take her from the orphanage, I took her back to the apartment where we were staying and started to feed her the toddler snack food I had brought with me. She ate and ate and ate. I was astonished, actually, at how much food she could pack into a tiny body. And then she started to gag. She ate so much, she literally could not swallow another bite, which is when I realized she had no idea what it felt like to be full and when to stop.
Another of our children came from Africa and people commented on her “beautiful red hair.” With few exceptions, people of African descent do not have red hair unless they are so malnourished from lack of calories and protein that they cannot produce normal levels of melanin. Her hair color changed back to a rich, gorgeous black after she began to eat a healthier diet.
When our kids got old enough to leave their rooms at night, I began to find food in odd places. Hidden under their pillows, or beds. Cans opened with screwdrivers and hammers, contents eaten, then placed back on the shelf. Yes, we have can openers and if they asked if they could eat something, my answer was always yes unless it was a specific, limited ingredient for a planned meal that week — and then I would offer an alternative: peanut butter and jelly, cookies, even macaroni and cheese. But there was something about the furtive keeping of food that was important to them.
I realized then, and they’ve confirmed it as adults, that their thought process was something like this: “There’s food now. There might not be in the future, so I better take extra, just in case.” Before they even had words to talk about it, they learned to “prepare” for uncertainty by hiding and hoarding food.
It ripped my heart out. I never, ever wanted our kids to be food insecure again, so we always (and still do) have food in abundance at our house. We’ve never used food as a punishment. I couldn’t send mixed messages to kids who had literally been through periods of starvation.
Many of our traditions revolve around food. Those traditional foods represent comfort and safety (hopefully!). They helped create the social bonds that bind our family. Making and eating the same foods each holiday season helped make memories that turn into family stories. “Remember the time the turkey was only half-done because the bottom oven element stopped working?” Or the time (more than once) when the caramels became caramel suckers because I got distracted.
We came together in unconventional ways, and many of our children were old enough to consciously remember life before they became a Richardson. Our family traditions now include food from my children’s countries of origin: palov from Kazakhstan, borscht and pierogies from Russia, injera and doro wat from Ethiopia and so much more.
Holidays, of course, “require” certain foods and my children — even as adults — look for those traditions, including a chocolate Yule log, homemade caramels and a specific Tex-Mex meal on Christmas Eve. We tried moving away from that Christmas Eve meal and doing a “Harry Potter”-themed meal. Very fun, but not Christmas, my kids informed me.
Things change slowly as the years go by. This Thanksgiving, one of my married daughters made the chocolate Yule log for the first time. We now make sure we have a variety of dishes that are gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free and pork-free. We sometimes make smaller batches — and sometimes bigger batches. As my children marry, they are incorporating new traditions into the ones they brought from our home, as they should. And, as traditions go, it’s not actually about the food, but the love.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some baking to do.