Ian

Ian

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Family Traditions

Dear Ian,
Happy Belated 4th of July! As usual for our family, we spent the holiday at the cabin at Lake Seminole. And as usual, we ate too much, stayed up too late, and goofed off the entire time. We did all of the same things we do pretty much every year, and despite that repetitiveness, we still had just as much fun as usual. We played midnight Monopoly, ate S'mores, rode in the boat and sat on the water to watch the fireworks, and played Putt Putt in the park. It even rained on us again. The weekend got me thinking of all of the neat, funny and sometimes off-the-wall family traditions we have for holidays.

For New Year's Eve, we throw a great party for our friends and family. Typically, we turn on the pool heater to 104 degrees, and people come and eat and swim and count down the approach of the new year. There's tons of people in and out of the house all night, an amazing amount of food and drink, and it usually lasts until about 2am. We even managed to throw one of our New Year's Bashes the year you were born. You were just two months old, but somehow we pulled it of, and you were a trooper through all of it.

Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day are smaller holidays as far as our celebrations go, but we still have some fun with them. For Valentine's Day, I make a heart-shaped meatloaf. Daddy and I sometimes go out on a date, but I still make our meatloaf. I also have absolved Daddy from ever buying me roses on Valentine's Day after I bought them for him one year and realized just how expensive they were. Whoa! Unfortunately small son, you will most likely have to buy roses for your Valentine when you are older, but hopefully she will come to the same realization as I did. Back to holidays. St. Patrick's Day for us is celebrated with wearing green, of course, but I also make scalloped potatoes and ham for dinner this night.

As I write this, I realize how much a part food plays in our holiday celebrations! Oh well... back to our point. Easter is celebrated by church, an egg hunt and of course, food. Our meal of choice for this holiday is your Great-Grandpa Colombrito's leg of lamb. Yum. It's one of my favorites. The egg hunts I remember growing up were so much fun. We would be at Grandma and Grandpa Colombrito's and they would hide plastic eggs all over the yard. The "silent eggs" were the most desired, as they usually had dollar bills in them :) You had a couple of these eggs in your first egg hunt. We eat our lamb and then go and visit your Grandmas and Grandpas. This past year, Grandma and Grandpa Davis celebrated with us, and then we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Brooks.

We've already discussed the 4th of July holiday, so on to Halloween. We don't really have much of a family tradition for this, but we do put up decorations, dress up and trick or treat. When I was growing up, we didn't have neighbors, so we never got trick-or-treaters. Our first Halloween after getting married was a blast for me; I got to pass out candy to the kiddies, and now I am SO looking forward to taking you around our neighborhood to trick or treat. We have a great neighborhood for it.

Thanksgiving, of course, revolves around food again. It's a typical Thanksgiving in that we have turkey, sweet potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, cranberries and stuffing. Holy cow this post is making me hungry. And getting long. Thankfully, just one holiday to go. Sometimes we go to each set of your grandparents for Thanksgiving. Sometimes they come to us. Either way, we eat WAY too much. I also LOVE to watch the Macy's Parade and football.

Last but not least is Christmas, and this is the holiday that we have the most number of traditions. Five days before Christmas, we start the movies. First is Lupin the Third and the Castle of Cagliostro. It's an anime film that your Daddy and I LOVE! Around now I also start baking your Great-Grandma Davis' famous cookie recipe. I make about 700 cookies. It's a job, but I love it. Day 4 before Christmas is National Lampoon's Christmas vacation and the gift wrapping marathon. Day 3 is Frosty the Snowman and driving around looking at Christmas lights. Day 2 is How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Grandma Davis' famous meatball subs. Christmas Eve, we go to Grandma and Grandpa Brooks' house for their annual Christmas Eve get-together. Here's where your Daddy and Uncle Ryan play Christmas carol duets on the piano. It's funny :) And they sound great. We also watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and drive around looking at Christmas lights. Finally, it's Christmas Day. We get up and MAKE THE BED!! Presents cannot and will not be opened before the beds are made. This way, you have some place to put your gifts after they are unwrapped. Actually, I think Grandma and Grandpa Davis made us do this to get a couple more minutes of sleep. Until we started getting up and making our beds at 5am. Anyway. After opening presents, we eat baked ziti and then go visiting family.

Whew. All written out, we do a lot of great stuff to make our holiday's something special. I hope I didn't leave anything out, and I cant wait to see how our holiday family traditions adapt and grow as you grow up. I hope that they help you form lasting memories of special times spent with your families, and I hope that you can pass them on to your family.

Love,
Mommy

1 comment:

  1. Wow, now I'm hungry.

    On Halloween, four blocks of our street and the next street over close to car traffic and there's an enormous block party and house decorating contest. Lots of fun. Last year Graham was a tiger. I think we'll start annual invites to as many of our little people friends as we can think of.

    ReplyDelete