Traditions- poppy seed bread

The joke is that "it must be a holiday- there's poppy seed bread!" It's my husband's  favorite and he grew up with it on the table for Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas.  Now also, his birthday has joined the list of Occasions For Which Poppy-Seed Bread Is Served.

   I've mentioned before that my father-in-law is the one to do the vast majority of the cooking in their household; the poppy-seed bread is one of the few things that my mother-in-law does make as a matter of course.   Naturally I got the recipe from them quite a while back, so as to be certain to have it for Thanksgiving dinners.
   We had a bit of a saga when it came to Brett's birthday this year, because of the oven.  The timing display quit. Several attempts by Brett to repair it came to nothing and we decided to replace the entire unit.  (The stove itself worked fine during this trouble.)  However, the time between the oven giving up and the time we got the new one installed (quite promptly I might add) did include his birthday.  So there was no poppy seed bread and I had to buy a cake!  
  But- once the oven was in, we made a batch of poppy seed bread.  Happy birthday, Brett!