Personal Narrative: Tamales Through Time

Tamales Through Time This year’s craziness and smells of carne and my family gathering in my grandparents’ kitchen brings a big, bubbly smile to my face, like always, because I know this means the official start of Christmas, and Christmas means I get to be with my family and Santa is going to bring me presents! My mom says that she heard that I’m on Santa’s nice list for the 5th year in a row! I always look forward to tamale making because I get to be around all my cousins and aunts and uncles and watch them make yummy food for our Christmas Eve feast while I make gingerbread houses! And every year when I ask if I can help this time, grandma always explains while grinning that “you can’t help with the tamales until you’re tall enough to reach the counter because someone so tiny will get knocked into the masa and then we will have tamales that taste like Alejandria! Ay, Carumba! What a mess that would make!”. But it’s okay …show more content…
I can feel it in my bones. Now that I’m a fourth grader, an ‘upper classman’ on my school’s campus, I think this is the year that I will finally get to help in the kitchen. As I approach Grandma Q, my bones shake with eagerness. After I hug her but before I over think it, I spit out my annual question and she says, “Sí, you are growing up! Soon mi hija will be taking over! Oh vey!”. As she walks away I stand there with a smile from ear to ear on my face. After all these years, I finally get to dig my hands into the work and sit with family as we prepare dozens of tamales and laugh as our elbows hit each other’s while we work. And let me tell you, I am learning that eating them after helping make them is even more satisfying! Especially, when the tamale you open at Christmas Eve Dinner is the one your cousin decided to put a single piece of blue hard candy in. “Out of the dozens of tamales we make!” I whisper to myself. But, my family and I were laughing our heads off as he sat their smirking at my