Traditions

Having gone through the first major holiday with my new little family I got to thinking about traditions. Many of the little things that we have always done in my family seemed to sneak up on me this Easter…even ones that I didn’t really realize were traditions. Evan is still too young to remember any of this, but I still felt compelled to dye eggs with the same good ‘ol Paas kit that I used growing up. I still made the traditional “Mommy” “Daddy” and “Evan” eggs like we always did growing up. I put the same types of candies in his easter basket (chocolate bunny, Cadbury cream egg, a few peeps. The Easter Bunny was always sure to leave our baskets by the wood stove in the house….I don’t have a woodstove, but I did put Evan’s basket in front of the fireplace. I did all of these things without even really thinking about the fact that it’s the same things I have been doing for as long as I can remember….which I find kind of neat. My traditions are so a part of me that I didn’t even have to think about doing them. Here’s a few other neat traditions that my family has.

 

1. Xmas Eve at my mom’s house. It changes slightly from year to year, but it always includes dressy clothes, shrimp cocktail (gag), lots of delicious picky foods, Norad’s Santa Tracker, and the dads sneaking away to do shots of Sambuca or Hot Damn when they think we aren’t looking. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without this one.
2. Christmas Day….Keith’s family does this really odd Polish tradition that I have come to really enjoy. I got kind of ambushed by it the first year though. Picture this….I have been dating Keith for about 6 months and, while I know his immediate family, I don’t know his extended family too well. Before dinner, each person gets a host. I am not Catholic so don’t take communion at catholic churches and eating host was a new thing for me. Once everyone has a host, you walk around and break off a piece from each person’s host thingy and give em a smooch. I decided to play nice and go along with this…not realizing that it’s really easy for that stuff to stick to the roof of your mouth….so I wandered around kissing total strangers with an enourmous pile of sticky host in the roof of my mouth. I don’t eat the host anymore (I give it to a younger cousin) but I still enjoy this one.
3. Thanksgiving….this is a personal favorite of mine. We all get together at my aunt’s house and chow down. All 16 or something of my cousins still sit at the “kid’s table” and are generally loud and obnoxious. It always seems that despite where life takes us we all end up back around that table on Thanksgiving. I hope that never changes. The day concludes with all of us going on a hike with the dads/uncles. This started as a way to get all of us out the mom’s hair for a bit when we were rowdy youngsters and has continued to include beer and a way to get out of kitchen duties  
4. Sunday dinners. Once Evan came along these became much more frequent, but it’s a way for me to get out of cooking to keep in touch with my siblings and my parents and relax before the start of a busy week.

 

I’m sure there’s more, but this has turned into an post of epic lengths already. Any neat traditions on your end? And a pic of Evan for your viewing pleasure :)