My sister loves to experiment culinarily. She subscribes to magazines with all sorts of gourmet recipes. Which is usually okay. She's a great cook and she's come up with some interesting things to try, most of which have been good.
One year for Thanksgiving, she wanted to try this rice stuffing for the turkey. And what sort of amazed me was how unhappy, disappointed, and frankly upset I was about it. I look forward to traditional turkey dressing all year and here it was, denied me. I don't even remember if the rice stuffing was bad or good, I just remember that it was wrong.
The lesson, of course, is don't mess with tradition. Well, except sometimes.
My wife's family has this Christmas tradition. You take turns opening presents while everyone watches. They start with the youngest and go around the room by age until everyone has opened one present. Then they start back with the youngest again and keep doing that until everyone is out of present. Some people run out of presents earlier than others so they have to sit there watching other people open presents.
One year, Christmas was at my house. So they said it was up to me to decide how to open presents. I glanced over and saw my wife's aunt, the oldest person in the room, but also the shortest adult. So I decreed we'd do it by height, shortest to tallest. Now the aunt, who was always last ,was fourth after the three children (my wife was fifth). I was second to last, my preternaturally tall brother-in-law last. I thought it worked out pretty well and no one seemed upset about it. The kids still got to go first it just changed the order of the adults.
So I guess in some ways it's okay to mess with tradition.
Just don't mess with my turkey stuffing.
And the leftovers. Stove Top + cranberry + turkey + cheese + gravy = the perfect sandwich.
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