Favorite Sisters Country traditions

The holiday season thrives on tradition. Sisters has some community traditions - the annual tree-lighting ceremony, the Christmas parade.

Many local families gather here to reenact activities often handed down from generation to generation. Here is a sampling of holiday traditions as practiced by friends and neighbors in Sisters Country.

Rongi Yost:

"One special tradition that has been carried to the third generation in our family is succotash. I remember as a little girls my gramma always having succotash for our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. My mom carried on that tradition and now that I live far from my mom I make that dish for my family and they all love it - even my little grandkids!

"Succotash in our family is equal amounts of pinto beans and corn mixed with sauteed bacon and onion and cooked on low for several hours."

Jack McGowan:

"My earliest and most fond memories of this wonderful time of year centered around the tradition of getting the tree. To see how this adornment would transform my parents' small apartment in New York City into a separate, twinkling magical realm was astounding to my small eyes. Of course, stuffing that monster into our elevator for the trip up to our sixth-floor living room was sometimes an adventure in itself!

"Since living in my beloved Oregon for the past 42 years, this tradition has never been broken. Once again, we will start our season by picking out that special one. After it's adorned, we state that "this is the nicest one ever," and once again memories of years gone by, of loved ones who are no longer with us to share, and current warm times with friends will fill our home with that special magic."

Jeff Spry:

"My great-aunt Abbey in New England was one of the first female vice-presidents for John Hancock insurance in Boston, and always sent me books as gifts. One of my favorites was a Christmas treasury called 'Take Joy' by the late children's author and illustrator Tasha Tudor. It was a compilation of Christmas stories, carol lyrics and Vermont holiday traditions, with literary nuggets like O. Henry's, 'The Gift Of The Magi,' Dickens' 'A Cratchit's Christmas Dinner' and 'A Child's Christmas In Wales' by the amazing Dylan Thomas.

"Every Christmas as a kid growing up in California I'd take that book, crawl to the rim of the Christmas tree on our shag carpet and leaf through the book, marveling at Tudor's incredible watercolor illustrations and absorbing the rich stories in the warm, multi-colored glow of the lights. The book cover still bears the mark of a butter stain from a Pillsbury biscuit accident late one Christmas Eve. Reading it again each year reminds me of the transformative magic of words.

Kit Tosello:

"With all the happy insanity of the holiday, it would be easy to forget to carve out time for reading the story of Christmas out of the Bible. Fortunately, the kids, most of them now grown, would never allow that. By far the warm-and-fuzziest moment for me is when we curl up on couches while Garth (or, more recently, one of the big kids) opens to the book of Luke. Together we recall with wonder the events surrounding the birth of Jesus, and the hope it symbolizes."