We have had the exact same meal for Thanksgiving and Christmas

Brandi Cyrus speaks with a voice that carries the fragrance of memory and the power of tradition when she declares: “We have had the exact same meal for Thanksgiving and Christmas since I can ever remember, and it's so simple. It's just turkey and mashed potatoes and green beans and stuffing. Just the basics, but it's so good.” In this utterance, there lies a truth that is as old as human gathering itself: that simplicity, when bound with continuity, becomes sacred. It is not the extravagance of the feast that nourishes the soul, but the ritual of repetition, the familiar table, the unchanging taste, which binds generations together like links in an unbroken chain.

In every culture, the ritual meal has served as a stone upon which identity is carved. Whether it be the unleavened bread of the Passover, the rice and fish of ancestral Asian offerings, or the corn and squash of Native harvest feasts, the people return year after year to the same foods, as if tasting again the presence of those who came before. Brandi Cyrus, in remembering her family's humble turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and stuffing, testifies not merely to a menu but to an altar of belonging, where food is no longer just sustenance, but a vessel of memory.

History bears witness to the strength of this truth. During the Great Depression, countless American families could not afford lavish celebrations, yet they clung fiercely to a few simple dishes year after year. In the dust-choked towns of Oklahoma and the breadlines of New York, people still sought a way to place on the table a modest turkey or even a humble chicken, with potatoes and beans beside it. They did so not because the food itself was extraordinary, but because in ritual repetition, they kept alive the ember of hope and the assurance that life’s hardships could not erase identity nor erase belonging.

This lesson reaches even further back. The Romans, who conquered vast lands and gathered spices from across the empire, still returned each year to their simple festival of Saturnalia, where the common dishes of grain, wine, and olive oil reminded them of their roots. So too, the Jewish people, wandering or settled, never abandoned the seder meal of bitter herbs and unleavened bread. These examples teach us that the strength of tradition does not rest in variety, but in the constancy of remembrance.

For the modern soul, besieged by endless novelty, Cyrus’s words are a quiet call back to simplicity. In a world where recipes change, diets shift, and abundance tempts us with variety, there is power in saying, “This is what we always eat.” It roots the heart, steadies the mind, and reminds us that joy does not require excess. What is basic may indeed be sacred, when it is seasoned with continuity and shared in love.

The real-life story of the Kennedy family offers a parallel. Despite their wealth, they were known to maintain simple family dinners where clam chowder and brown bread, foods of their New England roots, were served again and again. For them, the meal was less about impressing dignitaries and more about binding their children to the hearth of shared history. That constancy gave them grounding even as they navigated the storms of political ambition and national tragedy.

Thus, the teaching is clear: do not despise the simple meal, nor crave endlessly for change in moments that are meant to bind. If your family sits together to eat bread and soup each year, rejoice, for you are richer than kings. If you are far from kin, create a dish of your own, and repeat it faithfully, so that one day your children and their children will say, “It has always been thus.” In this way, you will weave a thread of continuity through time.

The lesson for all who hear is this: honor the basics. Choose a ritual, however modest, and hold it sacred. Do not abandon the turkey and potatoes of your forebears for endless novelty, for the true sweetness of life is not found in the glittering banquet, but in the eternal return of that which is familiar, loved, and shared. In cherishing simplicity, you will find abundance; in honoring tradition, you will taste immortality.