Sign up for our free newsletters. As a mother with four small children, countless relatives and a very limited budget, my annual holiday panic is about to set in. If you've been following this column since the summer and started your journey toward your family history, you should have a fair bit of information collected. Family favorites, recipes handed down through the ages, tweaked and altered until they are uniquely ours. I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly.
Tunafish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock.
Mom's rice salad, etc. As you collect recipes, remember to ask for anecdotes to go along with them. Or stories of heading to a local berry patch to collect and eat as many berries as one could hold for grandma's famous pies. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal. About the author Shannon Warnick is Mom to Lisa, Collin, Daniel and Sarah.