When my children were small, they were not allowed sweets, chocolates and fizzy drinks everyday – there was only one day in the week that they were allowed treats. They didn’t like sweets and fizzy drinks that much anyway, but they loved Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate Buttons. And whenever I baked chocolate cupcakes, I would put one of those buttons at the bottom of each cupcake.
Just a silly little family tradition I started.
My grown-up children (in their mid to late twenties) may have forgotten about it consciously, but not subconsciously, I don’t think: when my 27-year-old daughter came to visit us, she brought us a bag of Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate Buttons.
I also used to bake cupcakes (sometimes from instant mixes!) and put silly little flags on them. Because it’s one of the weird things I do …. and weirdness is what we need to breathe hope into the universe, according to the latest Star Wars movie. My 17-year-old rolls her eyes whenever I make those these days (photo: for her school’s Bake Sale), but I know somewhere deep in her, a special neurone fires whenever she sees a cupcake with a silly little flag.
A few weeks ago, it was Winter Solstice.
Again, when my children were young, we would hang out a little necklace every year to celebrate Winter Solstice, namely a time for being indoors, cuddling up, reading stories and being grateful for warm fires.
These days, we only have one child living at home, our youngest who is 17. I felt kind of silly making and hanging up this necklace, but I did it nonetheless.
“I don’t think she’d even noticed,” I said to her father.
“Never mind, old girl, it gets knitted somewhere into her soul,” he said reassuringly.
I didn’t really think much about what he said until, totally unrelated, I took a closer look at this photograph and saw her holding my hand as she slept in the sun. She used to do that, she has always done that. It’s our family tradition, like Chocolate Buttons and cupcakes with silly flags and Winter Solstice necklaces. So important.
Even if our children don’t remember, the things we do with love for them becomes part of their magical beings, knitted into their souls. Keep doing ❤
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