Why My Favorite Christmas Tradition Makes The Best Holiday Gift

One of the earliest and best memories I have about Christmas is my mother purchasing boxes of produce—oranges and apples, to be exact. She would also place candy dishes filled with mixed nuts and hard candy (which always seemed to stick together) on the coffee and end tables. 

When I was about 15 years old, I asked her why she carried on this tradition every year. I had hopes of receiving some long-learned family wisdom that I would be able to pass down to my children. But her answer was simply, “Because my father and mother did this every year.”

Rich History from a Poor Past

Speed forward to 1997, my sophomore year of college. I took a history elective course that included a very brief segment on African American history. It was through this segment that I learned more about my family history than I could ever have imagined.   

It seems that from the time of slavery through the Jim Crow era, many African Americans had no money to buy gifts and little of anything else to give. So, they would keep fruit and nuts and even pieces of candy for the holiday season and pass these items along as gifts to each other. 

The remarkable part about this story is that when I told my mother the origins of the tradition, she said it made a lot of sense. Her father was the son of a slave, which would have made him part of the first generation of free African Americans in the United States.   

She also told me he didn’t talk a lot about his past, but he took pride in providing these items around the holidays. This made such a deep impression on my mother that it became a ritual in our home when I was growing up. Today, it’s a ritual in mine. 

A Beautiful Legacy

This story reminds me that the best gifts are not what we leave for our loved ones, but what we leave in them, that matters. I do not believe Edward Bulluck (that’s the original spelling of our last name) would ever have guessed that his grandson would not only be telling this story with pride, but also carrying on the tradition with reverence.

Year after year, I can’t wait for the holidays, because I get to tell the story all over again like it’s the first time. That’s a beautiful legacy.