My family has a unique way to celebrate the 4th of July, which we happily credit to my Grandma Shirley. She was a nurse and had just come off a night shift and was eating cereal at a restaurant when they put up a sign for “Fresh Strawberry Sundaes.” She said they looked so good that she had to order one and when it came, she poured it on top of her cereal. Ever since then, my family has done the same. No matter where we are, we all take the time to have this breakfast treat. Over the years it evolved to have blueberries too, so we can say it’s patriotic.

We normally send pictures of our breakfast to each other too. This year our breakfast included homemade custard based vanilla ice cream and three small strawberries from the garden along with the store ones.

Here’s this year’s breakfast shot! 

Here are the components in case you want to adopt the tradition:

You need a flaky cereal, strawberries, blueberries, and ice cream. The proper way to make this (although there is some debate) is to pour the smallest amount of cereal you can get away with on the bottom, add the ice cream, then berries. Some people put the ice cream first, but that’s wrong…

Now, if you happen to run out of ice cream before you finish the rest of the berries (as I make sure to do,) it’s fine to get just a bit more. You have to come out even, of course.

I have won friends and influenced people with this breakfast. We had it one year when I was working at a summer camp and had brought other staff friends home and they thought it was the best part of the weekend. 🙂

Fancy ate some strawberries to celebrate with us, but only likes frozen blueberries. She spent most of the last two evenings with me in the basement hiding from the end of the world, otherwise known as the fireworks. The fleece blanket I tucked her in with apparently has magical powers, as she spent most of last night sleeping while I sewed and organized.

She’s better today and is still pretty cuddly. We took her to the dog friendly mall twice over the weekend and she liked that. The second time she refused to leave until we took her to the dog bakery for her free sample and some pets. There is a chance she is a very spoiled pup.

I hope you all had a happy and safe 4th! Feel free to adopt the family tradition and make it your own. We don’t mind sharing!