Why My Mom Ate Turnips Every Christmas....Even Though She Hated Them
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 737 Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Lorna Jean sat down for her first Christmas dinner without her father, she tried to hold on to every tradition her family had built over the years. Only when she set turnips in front of her mother did an unexpected confession rise to the surface, revealing a tender truth about love, marriage, and the quiet ways families carry their stories.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.0 | And we return to our American stories, |
| 0:17.4 | and we love telling stories of our listeners on this show. |
| 0:20.8 | Up next, a story from our |
| 0:22.5 | regular contributor and listener, Lorna Jane Estelle. Today, Lorna shares her story entitled |
| 0:28.0 | Love will turn up. Let's get into the story. Take it away, Lorna. |
| 0:46.5 | My mom was a master at putting on wondrous spreads at my family's holiday meals. |
| 0:57.6 | Thanksgiving and Christmas, we would be privy to a feast fit for the finest of royalty, tender, melt in your mouth turkey, stuffing, spiced just right, mashed potatoes, laced with ribbons of golden butter, |
| 1:06.4 | lump-free gravy, and, of course, turnips. We never had a holiday meal without a feast of turnips. |
| 1:16.3 | It was my dad's all-time favorite, and Mom never missed a special serving of turnips. |
| 1:24.4 | From as early as I can remember, till Mom and Dad went into the retirement home, this was our family tradition. |
| 1:33.8 | But shortly after moving into the retirement home, Dad passed away. |
| 1:40.6 | And Mom came to live with me. |
| 1:46.6 | It was the end of November when she arrived, |
| 1:50.4 | so I, being a serious Christmas fanatic, |
| 1:54.3 | was already planning our first Christmas together without my dad. |
| 2:00.5 | I vowed to carry on the family tradition and serve |
| 2:05.1 | Mom a scrumptious Christmas dinner. Mom, I explained, as we sat watching her favorite TV show |
| 2:14.3 | Lawrence Welk one evening in late December. |
| 2:18.4 | I want Christmas to be special for the two of us this year. |
| 2:22.7 | I'm going to cook our traditional Christmas meal, just like you always did. |
... |
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