Donuts

Every February there is a sleigh ride that is put on in Lisbon, ME. This is something that has been a part of my life since I was very small, partly because my dad’s side of the family does a lot to help put it on. I also like to help get involved and help where I could, which usually meant helping make my gram’s homemade donuts. Every year, on the Friday before the sleigh ride took place, a group of my family, and family friends, would all gather at my grandparents house to make prepare about a thousand donuts. The kitchen would become a flurry of activity of conversations and donut making. Everyone had their jobs that they were working, occasionally switching around. There was mixing, rolling out dough and cutting it out, placing the cut out dough on the board, and counting all of the donuts that had been made to keep track of them all. Then bringing the cut donuts to the rec room and bringing in a new board to place to donuts on. All of this was always something that I looked forward to. There are pictures of me with my dad making donuts and the memories always make me smile. Every now and then, my uncle would take some of the remaining dough and fry it and give it to me to eat. This was something that I looked forward to every year. I would skip school to go and make donuts with my family. Although, there were a few years where school stuff would get in the way, like sport games, or lots of quizzes. I grew up making these donuts with my family. When I was little, I would help my aunt cut out the donuts. As I got older, my job would change. I had a brief career in stirring together the dough but it would always come out way too sticky, so I had to count donuts instead. I loved to be a part of all of this, no matter what my job was. I mean to be fair, the best part was always after all of the hard work was done, when I just got to eat the donuts but that part didn’t come until the day of the sleigh ride itself. I wish I could have grown up going to the sleigh ride with my dad but I was always surrounded by family. I have so many great memories of the sleigh ride and making the donuts. We always kept the wonderful tradition of making the homemade donuts and it was one of my favorite family traditions.

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