Every Christmas my mother cons us into ‘Making Sweets,’ the most pointless Indian Tradition ever. Basically each family makes oodles of sweets, to put in a Christmas plate, and give to another family, who will give you variations of the same sweets back. Often the product you get back is worse than your own, hence the POINTLESSNESS.
Yesterday once again we innocents (dad and Moi) got suckered into dedicating our ENTIRE Sunday into this pointless tradition.
At seven a.m., Aunty Z shows up at our front door, bearing huge plastic boxes, armed and ready. My mother, Aunty Z and dad spend all day forming little multi colored shells (mazipan,) white balls with cherries on the tops (Nankaties) and little fried shells (Kul Kuls)
Sample of conversation whilst making the Kul Kuls:
Dad: This is a silly tradition
CP: I think we should do a cost analysis of how much this is costing us in terms of ingredients and man hours and figure out if we need to do this again next year
Mum: Listen you two whiners this is tradition, (to my father) Your mother would beat you
CP: I think we should out source
Aunty Z: Listen here, there is joy in making these sweets, my husband loves to do this!
Dad: (Mutters about how Aunty Z’s husband is in fact taking a nap as we speak)
CP: My hands hurt, how come we get the crappy jobs, I want to stir,
Mum: Listen small fry; to learn how to do things properly you’ve got to do the dirty work
CP: (In a threatning voice) But I don’t want to learn, I will never do this when I live on my own…..the TRADITION DIES with me,
Mum and Aunty Z: (give me a knowing look) We said the same thing, and Look at us now
Dad: Yup all you crazy women turn out to be just like your mothers, CP look how big your bum is going to be one day…..just you look…
CP: It’s been five hours….do you think I could put this on my resume? I wonder what my title would be?
Dad: Director of Operations, Kul Kul Administration….(Starts to laugh so hard he falls of his chair)
(Pictures to follow shortly)
What’s your holiday tradition?
4 comments:
Cookies. Lots of cookies. My mother bakes them, makes me wash the dishes and then we BOTH whine about how much weight we gained.
Mmmm, holidays.
LOL -- post de pics soon.
This is hilarious!!
My cousins and I make Maltese Easter cakes, and that turns out to be a rather nasty competition. I've posted about it here:
http://tenpostagestamps.blogspot.com/2006/04/world-war-cake.html
Our is voluntary though.
Your dad sounds so cute!
Look at it as family time and it will be worth it:) Don't have a tradition of such unless cleaning like there is no tomorrow counts
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