She might limit the number of presents for her children and smuggle authentic German sausages, but she too makes all the effort to keep the tradition going.
Every family has a special tradition, especially around the holidays. For some, it could cooking meals together while for some it could be sitting down together to watch old home videos made during earlier festival seasons. No matter what the tradition is, it's the memories and overall love behind it that makes generations of people continue to do it.
And that doesn't stop with just us. Hollywood celebrities like Sandra Bullock have their own family festive traditions as well. For example, one recent tradition of hers shows just how well she balances being caring and strict with her two children. Feeling like the holiday season was sometimes over-the-top, the mother-of-two sticks to a maximum of three gifts for her kids, Laila and Louis.
Speaking to Today, the actress said that typically, the holiday is "really, really overdone because I overdo it, and then I panic that I didn't do enough. Then I get more—and then everyone else has overdone it." Continuing, she stated, "But this year we just stopped. We just stopped. Because there's so much happening in the world where people don't have anything. And we said, 'Why don't we just make this about other people? And they were amazing about it. So, Christmas is three small gifts."
But while this tradition seems sweet and simple, there is one more longer-lasting ritual that may sound a bit weird to the rest of us, especially since it involves smuggling sausages in from Germany. For most of us, it doesn't particularly matter where our meat comes from unless it is made by a family member. But for the Bird Box actress, genuine sausages hold a lot of meaning, especially since it reminds her of her late mother, Helga.
The 55-year-old actress's mother was a German opera singer who began this tradition years ago, something that had become integral to her family meals. As a way to not only enjoy the tradition but to keep her mother's memory alive, the Miss Congeniality actress has made the effort to bring German sausages back to her home in Georgia, USA. And her family is there to help as well. According to People, her family sends an “SOS” to a handful of loved ones overseas to send the meats over to the United States.
“Since my mother passed, we break the law, because we have to manage to smuggle German sausages into the country, and apparently bringing meats across the waters is against the law. You fry ’em up with some sauerkraut and potato salad, but they have to be the right ones,” said the mother-of-two to talk show host Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.
However, she did not reveal how her family got it. "We just have to break the law a little bit, but eventually someone’s package gets through. I’m not at liberty to divulge how we smuggle the sausage," said the actress with a slight smirk. To that, all the host had to say was, “When you put it that way, I don't want to know.”
While this tradition might seem bizarre to us, it's definitely special to her. And well, we wish her all the best for it! Happy holidays!
References:
https://people.com/celebrity/sandra-bullocks-christmas-dinner-smuggled-sausages/
