Passing It On

I visited a friend for Thanksgiving.

Nothing formal. Just one of those homes where you walk in and immediately feel like you belong. The kitchen was already alive—warm, a little crowded, full of movement. You could hear things happening before you even saw them. Pots shifting. Laughter from the next room. Someone calling out, “Is this ready yet?”

And right in the middle of it all… was the turkey.

Not finished yet.

Still in process.

Being prepared.

And as I stood there watching, I noticed something.

Before she put the turkey in the oven… she took a knife and cut off both ends.

Just sliced them clean off.

Set them aside.

And then carried on like it was the most normal thing in the world.

So I asked her,

“Why did you do that?”

She paused… smiled a little… and said,

“I don’t know.”

She said, “That’s just how my mom always did it.”

So we asked her mom.

“Why do you cut both ends off the turkey?”

She thought about it for a moment… and gave the exact same answer.

“I don’t know. That’s just how my mom always did it.”

Now we’re two generations in…

and nobody knows why they’re doing what they’re doing.

So they called Grandma.

“Grandma, why do we cut both ends off the turkey before putting it in the oven?”

And without hesitation, she said,

“Oh—that’s easy.

We had a small oven.”

And just like that… it all made sense.

What started as a necessity…

became a tradition.

What was once practical…

became permanent.

And what was never explained…

just kept getting passed down.

Three generations…

Doing the same thing…

For a reason that no longer existed.

And here’s what struck me standing there in that kitchen—

Nobody sat down and taught that.

There was no lesson.

No explanation.

No intentional moment where someone said,

“Let me show you why we do this.”