On Tia Pepy's Rice Pudding, Reindeer Cookies, And Other WUSF Family Holiday Traditions

Red-nosed reindeer cookiesWe start by hearing from Dalia Colon, the producer of our Zest podcast. She takes us into her home as her family prepares, bakes and delivers their traditional reindeer cookies.Fishing With DadFlorida Matters host Robin Sussingham shares her day fishing with her father. His smoked mullet is a favorite among their friends and family.Remembering "Tia Pepy"As soon as we started talking in the newsroom about traditions and holidays, the first thing our Morning Edition host, Jessica Meszaros, thought of was her Aunt "Tia Pepy's" rice pudding.Jessica says she thought of her aunt "immediately because ever since I was growing up, she would come around on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and she would have a Tupperware for us and she does that for everyone."A Pagan CelebrationWUSF multimedia reporter Daylina Miller celebrates a pagan yule log tradition. Daylina teaches us about the pagan tradition, which celebrates the winter solstice and why some have moved from buring the yule log to baking one.  YuleThe ancient season of Yule is a time of both reflection and celebration, a time to connect in a relational way with one’s own inner wisdom and with the people that surround them.Many different cultures from the Nordic Vikings to the Celtic Druids, Egyptians to the Hopi ritualized this sacred time to promote spiritual unity and attunement.Yule is when we celebrate the turning of the wheel of the year. It is when the dark half of the year relinquishes to the light half. Starting the morning after the winter solstice at sunrise, the sun climbs just a little higher and stays a little longer in the sky each day. Known as Solstice Night, or the longest night of the year, much celebration was to be had as the ancestors awaited the rebirth of the oak King, the Sun King, the Giver of life that warmed the frozen Earth and made her to bear forth from seeds protected through the fall and winter in her womb.Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. -- Hamilton Wright MabieBorscht, Their WayKerry Sheridan spent a day with her 96-year-old grandmother, Olga Smith, recreating a traditional favorite soup made by their Ukrainian ancestors. They traveled from the butcher shop to the kitchen and down memory lane, as they cooked up some homemade Borscht with a personal twist.