Every Thanksgiving that I can remember, my family and I have stopped at Dunkin' Donuts before driving to my grandparents' house in Portland. Mom and Dad always bought us a box of 45 Munchkins--doughnut holes--while they always ate "big doughnuts."

On the 45-minute drive to Portland, my brother Nate and I fought over the glazed, jelly and creme-filled holes, leaving the cake doughnuts--chocolate, sugar 'n' spice and powdered--in the bottom of the box.

When the Dunkin' Donuts near our house in south Salem closed one summer when we were in high school, Nate and I were devastated. But Mom reminded us there were other Dunkin' Donuts.

When I began attending Multnomah two years ago, I forgot about the Thanksgiving tradition until I woke up in my grandparents' house on Thanksgiving day to the smell of turkey, mashed potatoes and corn.

Mom, Dad and Nate did bring me a doughnut, but the maple bar wasn't the same as Munchkins. Until that moment, I never knew how much I had looked forward to the drive to Portland with Munchkins between my brother and me.

We Porters have one family tradition even more important than our Thanksgiving doughnuts. Nate and I are seventh-generation Christians. Like our parents before us, Nate and I both attend Christian colleges and plan on going into full-time ministry.

No matter how many years will pass before I eat another Munchkin on Thanksgiving morning, not one day goes by that I don't remember the tradition my parents started by showing me the way to God.