Family Traditions

Donna, I found this online regarding "buttering the nose" on birthdays:

Canada - Greasing the nose with butter or margarine. In Atlantic Canada (Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland) the birthday child is ambushed and their nose is greased for good luck. The greased nose makes the child too slippery for bad luck to catch them. This tradition is reputed to be of Scottish decent. Birthday punches. In Quebec the birthday person receives a punch for each year they are alive and then one for good luck.

Mary wow you got the answer that has been bugging me for the last month. I never thought to look online as I had never heard of this before I just thought it was something that only my Pepere had come up with. Goes to show you that sometimes the answers are closer then you think. I am going to share this with my Mom who didn't have an answer for me. Thank you so much. I love the answer to greased up for bad luck to catch you. In honor of my Pepere' I will now add this treat to my own families birthdays.

Good research, Mary.

THANK YOU !THANK YOU! Mary!!

Oh, no problem, Donna. It just sounded like one of those traditions that just had to have an interesting explanation, so I figured I'd Google it. And, as I thought, it was interesting.

I'm tempted to do this to my daughter for her birthday next month. She loves quirky, unusual things and this will make her laugh.

Please do Mary I have decided to keep this tradition alive with my family. I am also going to explain the reason why so they don't ever have to spend a sleepless night wondering if I was just crazy or traditional. LOL

Wow I had never heard of this either very interesting to find out why the butter was used:)

interesting I love genealogy

I am also enjoying learning all about my family; the good the bad and the ugly.
I figure that you have to know where you came from to know where you are going in life.

thanks donna, didn't know that//

It is interesting isn't it Larry.

That's the same explanation I found. I'll double check tomorrow with a Scots friend of mine, but that seems to be fairly common in Eastern Canada.

http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=218595

Thank you Walker, this has bugged me for so long.

Cute photo. I am kicking myself in the pants on my not searching the web.

Wow! I am glad I was born and raised further south. neither seems to appealing to me!

There's lots of Scots heritage down here too...though I think that as thrifty as southerners had to be after the Civil War, we decided to eat the grease rather than put it on our noses....no wonder we eat everything deep-fried!

(VERY much tongue in cheek....)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/paulas-fried-butter-balls-recipe/index.html

Yes there is even deep fried butter! see link above. lol Linda!!

didn't know this either

well now we know, I love learning new things don't you?

Linda what you say makes perfect sense even if my stomach hurts when thinking of it!

Heart attack city...well at least it's not lard!

Very interesting. One of our family traditions started during the Depression when my grandmother could not afford to give gifts so she baked a lot of fruit cakes to give to people she wanted to gift. Long after she was gone, my father kept her Christmas giving tradition alive by always making sure we had a fruitcake for the holiday. A store bought fruitcake is not the same as a homemade one and I got pretty creative with ideas to use them. Do you know that if you let them dry out enough they make a good door stop? Kidding, of course, but it is a tradition I still carry on to this day.

So we all have your grandmother to blame for those lovely gifts of fruitcakes!

If you put enough rum in the cake they will last forever.

LOL, well, I know it started with my grandmother, not sure about everyone else. I'm sure the homemade version had plenty of rum in it but the dried out cakes from the store were a different story. One time I was trying to make my father feel good about the fruitcake and earn some brownie points as well so I sliced off a big chuck of the cake, poured myself a glass of milk and headed off to my room. Thinking I was being smart, I tossed the hunk of cake out of my bedroom window. An hour or so later I heard my dad yell out, "Dianna, did you enjoy that fruitcake? I know Tippie (our dog) sure doesn't look too happy with it!" He was going to let the dog in for the night and he was carrying the chunk of cake like he had fetched a stick.

Ha ha! I love that story.

Very interesting...I'm glad my French-Canadian grandmother never passed that one down!
;-)

I was thinking that maybe this is why we give one year olds their own little cake to smash. Also maybe this explains the wedding cake smashing. I could never understand the smashing of wedding cakes into each others faces. Does anyone know why we do that?

I think it is because the bride and groom are stressed???

passive-aggressive brides and grooms?

I just found this on google:

Giving a bride a rude shower of cake dates back to Roman times when it was thought to ensure her fertility.

Answer: Wedding cake in a bride’s face is a fertility blessing.

Originally, the cake was not eaten by but thrown at the bride. It developed as one of the many fertility traditions surrounding a wedding. Wheat was is a symbol of fruitfulness and was among the earliest grains to be ceremoniously showered on the bride and groom. In its earliest origins, the unmarried young women attending the wedding were expected to scramble for the grains to ensure their own betrothals, much as they do today for the bridal bouquet.

Early Roman bakers changed the “throw it” to the “eat it” tradition. These bakers were distinguished and respected in their trades. Somewhere around 100 BC they began taking the wedding wheat and creating small, sweet cakes with it; the cakes were eaten while the service was in progress.

DANG! No wonder I was infertile! We agreed that we wouldn't shove cake in each other's faces. Thank goodness for adoption!

ha ha ha !

That is interesting, the info on the tradition!

Yes it is and I love the reason.

wow - greasing the nose! What an interesting tradition! We just drive to Atlantic City on New Year's Day to test our luck for the year. :-)

Ha ha! We usually drive to the beach on New Years Day and if brave enough we jump in the ocean.

Maybe the pat of butter was something that a weird uncle made up for giggles.

Weird uncles don't like patting butter.

no real tradion here,,
great job maryy thanks for the history

That is very interesting..
No birthday traditions here...

thanks

That's a tradition I have never heard of!! Interesting! My great grandpa too sailed over to Canada from Germany because of religious repression. I really wish I did know more about my heritage. I am thinking of joining Ancestry.com. I have found some interesting stuff on there but have to have a subscription to go farther.

That's a great tradition, Donna. My family is into that other tradition from Quebec that Mary mentioned, the punches for your age. We don't punch hard being an all girl family, but some of us still bruise a lot.

I have heard of punch buggys but never punch the birthday person.

We pull the birtday person hair and say and one to grow on.

After you spank them you punch them on the arm and say one to grow on.

we always pulled the hair for one to grow on.

Glad you found the answer, Mary.

Great post! Glad the mystery was solved!!

Interesting tradition.

I am hiding my nose on my birthday!