Tradition.

Summer, and particularly summer vacations, has me thinking about tradition. At work, everyone is talking about their traditional summer vacation. Whether it’s a week in the Outer Banks or a trip to Colorado or a mini-staycation, everyone seems to have their ritual that marks a halfway point in the year. We spend the first half of the year looking forward to summer vacation and the last half of the year looking forward to the holidays. My family always vacationed in August, so it didn’t seem fair that I had to wait eight long months for the first real break of the year, but at least it made the second half go more quickly.

But now that I’m out of the nest, family vacations have kind of fizzled out. I can’t recall a single year when my family didn’t spend a week together on Long Beach Island. And not just my immediate family, but also my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was an unspoken expectation that you figured out a way to arrange for vacation time or a dog sitter or a housekeeper to take care of life at home that first week in August, and everyone focused completely on getting the perfect spot on the beach or waking up early to get the best ears of corn or racing on bikes down to the island lighthouse. (Except I never did that since I don’t know how to ride a bike. Vacations aren’t for exercise anyway.)

But these past few years have been different. Many of us are new to the workforce, so we don’t have as much flexibility on vacation time. Many of us are in relationships, so we’re spending holidays and vacations with other families or starting to create our own traditions. Plus, we had a tragedy in our family about a year ago, so going back to the same old routine feels somewhat impossible.

But aside from all of this, my family has some great traditions that I think will live on forever. I’m going to share a list of my favorites:

1.       Christmas Eve—For the past several years, we’ve spent our Christmas Eve just as a family of four. For the past two years, M has joined us as well, but I’m not sure what he thinks about the whole ordeal. We spend our first church service at a rehabilitation center with folks who can’t leave the hospital for the holiday. We have a short service filled with scripture and then take several laps around the floors caroling. Then we go to our regular church for a candlelight service and rush home after to eat a fishy Italian Christmas dinner. Afterwards, we put on our Christmas pjs and my mom reads her favorite Christmas book to us. She usually only makes it about halfway through the book before she’s crying and someone else needs to take over.

2.       Sunday Dinner—I think this might be an Italian tradition, but growing up we always had pasta for dinner on Sunday. Sometimes it would be a fancy pasta dish with intricate sauces and vegetable combinations, but frequently it was good old spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce and meatballs. It’s still my favorite meal when I go home for the weekends.

3.       Family Gift Exchange—For as long as I can remember, we’ve celebrated Christmas as an extended family a few days before New Years. We all gather at my aunt’s house in Bucks County and the “kids” sit on the floor in designated spots while our parents dole out the gifts. We open the presents all at once and then all get up to do a group thank you at the end. Then our parents sit on the couch and the kids hand out their presents. They open one at a time while the girls watch and the boys go downstairs to play whatever video game one of them received.

4.       Happy Hour—Okay, so happy hour might not seem like a tradition, but you’ve never seen an appetizer display like what goes down with my family. Whenever we’re all together, happy hour is the highlight of the evening. We have drinks and cocktails and if we’re at the beach, usually a frozen drink in a bucket straight from the freezer. There are buffalo wings and taco dip and Philly soft pretzels. There’s baked brie and veggies with dip and chips with salsa. The spread usually covers the entire kitchen table, and most of the time we’re full from hors devours before the meal is even served.

5.       Mother’s Day—My  mom is awesome, and we love to honor her on Mother’s Day, but she’s also a big believer in giving back. She’s a special ed teacher, which should tell you enough about her kind heart, but she’s also a Special Olympics swim coach and a volunteer and a Sunday School teacher at our church. So on Mother’s Day, it’s natural that she would want to do something for others while honoring the women in our family. So we’re lucky that in Pittsburgh The Race For The Cure is always on Mother’s Day. Many women in our family have been stricken with breast cancer, so doing a 5k with their names on our back seems like the perfect way to honor and celebrate the mother’s in our lives. We’ve done it in sunshine and in rain, with a big group or just the two of us (the year our car broke down in the parking garage before the race). I’m really proud of this tradition, and I hope I can continue it with my own family one day.

So those are the traditions I’m thinking about these days. Full of gratitude and love for the special people I share these moments with, and looking forward to building more traditions with my own family one day.

Happy Tuesday!

To family memories,

Lia