a couple years ago this is my little family getting ready to head to a Seder dinner.
Some Jewish friends invited us to join them for the traditional celebration of the Passover. It was a wonderful experience, fascinating, poignant and beautiful.
We also celebrated/observed? Shabbat with their family a couple times.
Like many American families we don't have alot of ceremony in our lives.
Most of the time I am content with that, on occasion though, I wonder if more traditions might be a good thing.
Do you have any?
Do you want any?
Got any ideas about some new ones we might enjoy?
19 comments:
Oh, I forgot to say, we celebrated Festivus this year, the kids loved it.
We had meatloaf and pasta, had the airing of grievances, the kids really liked that part, and then we thumb-wrestled.
That is a fun tradition, and we have it marked on the calendar to do again this year.
limelette#2 went to synagogue with a friend this satruday. she enjoyed it but she said the hebrew school teacher was mean to her friend.
we've gotten away from it some but at dinner we used to regularly go through each family member's best part of the day.
We have that family meeting at dinner every night....and a little stack of papers/notes that we have to discuss, etc.
We say our own little grace thing that Hannah made up when she was 3, so we say it like she did then..."thank you mother earth for the food about to 'ceive!"
And, the most important part of Passover is heartily observed in our home, the eating of the macaroons, chocolate or almond, where Ratburn always gets the first, last and bulk of the macaroons cuz he's the resident Jew! Bring em on!
Shalom, y'all!
On my blog, I've eluded to the fact that my family is not very religious. I was raised Catholic, but as a family [mom, dad, sis, and I] we don't really celebrate too many Catholic traditions. Every so often, we go to mass on Easter morning. Ash Wednesday has become less and less frequent.
As far as extented family traditions, we always get together for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and 4th of July. Pretty normal/typical American gatherings.
Thanksgiving is my favorite, though, because my dad always says a heart-felt prayer before dinner. He usually gets choked up and sheds a few tears while he reminisces about the past year.
Other than that, we're pretty traditionless.
OH, I forgot! Even though I'm living on my own and all growed up [lol], I am REQUIRED to come over to my parents' house first thing Christmas morning to open presents, recieve my Christmas stocking, and take pictures.
Lime~ That is a fun one! Sam started that a long time ago, I think he saw it on a PBS show, and I like that it is his thing, asking everyone else and then telling us his. Sometimes I despair of my children ever learning to be considerate, then they do things like this and I realize, its in there, they may not always choose to access it but it IS in there!
Bare~ LOL Macaroons are a fabulous tradtion, I like that idea!
Damasta~ With Festivus we have basically turned Christmas into a 4 day event. Festivus is just the 4 of us, then Christmas Eve with friends. Christmas morning is just us, then mom, dad, sis and fam are Christmas afternoon and evening THEN on Boxing Day (26th) the whole fam damily gets together (there are about 40 of us).
Oh, and sometimes we celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, November 5th.
In my family, we also wandered away from organized religion. So, we are pretty traditionless in that area.
Family-wise we have many. My 2 favorites are :
#1 -- The girls (mom, mel, me & my kids)celebrate what has come to be known as "the birthday parade". This is the period of time between one weekend to the next of whoever it's birthday it is in between those times.
#2 -- 4th of July at my brother's house. A couple years ago he extended this invitation : "Until one of us dies, you are invited over my house for 4th of July." (I've mentioned my bro is strange?)Anyway, it's a blast and we all love it.
I've been to seders are a friend's home. In our family, we do Thanksgiving of course, and XMAS, and one daughter and her husband give a family picnic each summer. That's about it.
In some ways I wish that we did more "traditions," but then again on second thought, I hate being obligated to do things like that.
Maybe you don't have much cerimony, but you do have a good looking family. I can see it now, a burning wickerman ceremony. I don't think the neighborhood would much care for that.
the tradition in the 'House of Shez' is that every year we take turns in telling the trog that he's a 'handsome, witty, good looking lad'...all the time crossing our fingers and hoping we don't get struck by lightning!!!
Snav~ I like the birthday parade!
I think I would like your brother, that sounds like my kind of invite.
TLP~ See that is the same way I feel, I think the idea of ceremony, but I specifically have dropped many of them because I DON'T want the obligations.
Grunt~ Thanks! And well, we don't burn him in effigy, we just do the candy part, that is the best of any tradition anyway, the food.
Shez, my baked alaska~ It is a good tradition, and ever so slightly religious in nature. We may very well adopt that one!
Seamus, you know, I like that idea! We talked about the spring equinox when it happened, and to celebrate the longest night I let the kids stay up as late as the wanted. They didn't make it all night, but if that is something we continue to do I am looking forward to watching the sunrise after the longest night as a family.
Well, come to think of it, Christmas is a 4 day event for me, too. It's Christmas Eve, Christmas, [my] Birthday Eve, then My Birthday [Dec 27th].
;)
There are too many here! For most of them, people even eat the same type of food all ove rteh country. Try, on those day, to be a foreigner and you´ll be disspointed in the stores at the little variety!
We have lots of traditions but I like to create our own because my parents never really did . We had one or two and that was it !
We have cocktail (half) hour almost every night (just ONE cocktail, for those with raised eyebrows. And if you had to work for Minnie Strator you'd be drowning your sorrows too). The kids have to go away, and Dr. Weirsdo and I live the good life for about 30 minutes. This is also a memorial to my father, who likewise observed a cocktail ritual when he could.
Another kidless ritual: Dr. Weirsdo and I celebrate our engagement anniversary with dinner out and a retelling of the proposal story.
I think we should start a celebratory tradition honoring the first week in April as the anniversary of when LOGO WON THE CAPTION CONTEST! :)
Damasta~ Awesome! Do you get all those days off from work?
Minka~ When we lived in Italy my husband worked with NATO. Most people got days off for every country's holidays. Hard to beat a deal like that.
Breazy~As I am responding to these comments I am realizing we have more traditions than I had realized.
Weirsdo~ That evening half hour sounds like a great tradition to me. Each year on the the morning of the boys' birthdays I bring their baby album with me to wake them up and tell them about the day they were born. They both love it. Even the boy who turned 10, when I offered to skip the story if he was too old for this tradition, said, nah, it was OK, I could tell the story...since I wanted to. He is a giver.
Sar~ YAY!! Happy dance, Happy dance!!
I only tell the kids the birth story when they are due for some heavy guilt.
Weirsdo~ I am not so good at the guilt trips. I would work on it if it were not for the fact that Mr. Logo is GREAT at that!
So I handle the reasoning, threatening, and bribing, he handles the guilt trips.
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