There is an excellent post at Three Plus Two about traditions - Thanksgiving and in general. I have been thinking similar thoughts for weeks now. I was blessed to have extended family very involved in my life growing up. However my mother and grandmother both worked outside the home and while there was lots of love, there was rarely an abundance of time.
My grandmother was truly a expert seamstress, knitter, and cook. She could knit intricate photographic images into sweaters, lovely cables, and mittens that fit perfectly. She sewed my prom dress and our family christening gown. She made meals that kept our table full of guests - though she eagerly employed all those new mixes and boxes. She was also a child of the depression - the era and the disease. Her father died when she was very young and her own mother was less than stable. She grew up with an appreciation for "new" "modern" and "convenience". She saw no need for passing on the valuable skills she possessed. They were unnecessary in the new dept. store world she embraced. So I watched. I deeply desired her skills. But, in the end, I left home with just fleeting bits and pieces of information and have spent the past two decades attempting to assemble them into a functional whole.
Like Angel, I am so grateful that our children are with us all day every day. Though my skills come nowhere close to Gram's I do try to be sure that what I know, they know. Hopefully they will leave home a little further down this road and will continue to travel until we recover the skills lost to more than a generation now.
What can you do? Do you bake, sew, crochet, cut hair, grow gardens, paint, stitch quilts, write books, make music, take pictures? As the host of an HGTV show said earlier this week, "Everyone is an artist!" That means you too. and someone would dearly love to know how you do it.
Kim,
Thanks for linking to my post. :-)
I didn't mention it in my post, but my mother is also a very good seamstress, like your grandmother. Unfortunately, it's *my* fault that I never learned how to sew... I never had the patience, and was always outside climbing trees. Now I really regret that I didn't take advantage of her expertise while I was at home. There are so many skills I wish I had, and now I'm trying to cram them into very brief, infrequent visits. My daughter also loves being outside and climbing trees; the difference is that she has time to do both! And I only had after school and summers, and of course being outside won the tug of war for me.
You make a very good point about being allowed to only watch vs. being encouraged to *do* as well. It's really something to keep in mind as we educate our children on a daily basis.
Posted by: Angel | November 24, 2006 at 07:48 PM