Groundhog Day

Bittersweet, on a snowy winter day

My father was asked in an interview once what his favorite holiday was. He said it was Groundhog Day. The interviewer looked a little surprised and asked him why. He answered, "Because I don't have to buy anyone presents or a card, or have dinner with my in-laws." People took his answer to be a humous way of saying that's a silly question and could we talk about birds, please. But I also think he answered honestly, in his own way.

We actually did have a family tradition on Groundhog Day. It started one year when I was very young and the electricity happened to go out at dinnertime due to a snowstorm. My father built a fire in the fireplace, went outside and cut some sticks, and we roasted hot dogs in the flames. Somehow the words groundhog and hot dogs became linked in my mind, and so when the next year rolled around, I remembered and thought we should do the same thing, even though we had electricity. My parents smiled, my father built a fire, and we roasted hot dogs again. After that, it became a tradition.

One year a friend asked me to come for a sleepover that night, and I said no, I couldn't, because it was Groundhog Day. She clearly thought I was crazy and that my family must be some kind of holiday freaks if we had traditions on a holiday that involved a rodent in Pennsylvania and a shadow. But no way was I going to miss hot dogs in the fireplace.

So years later, when I heard my father answer the interview question, I smiled to myself. He made a joke out of it, but I think he actually told the truth. To him, a holiday should be what a family makes of it, not what society tells us we should do on that day. Traditions should have meaning, and even if it is a simple meaning, like gathering around a warm fire in the middle of winter and cooking simple food, it is worth celebrating.

The house where I live now doesn't have a fireplace, and we're probably not going to have hot dogs, but my husband and I will watch the snow falling outside while we eat dinner in candlelight. And I'm sure that I will catch a whiff of wood smoke in my memory.

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone!