WordPress Prompt – Heart and Home: Building Bonds Through Family Traditions

Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

I wanted to write today, and what better than to answer a WordPress prompt and this one just seemed perfect.

I’ve always been one for family traditions and coming from a typical Italian family, we had certain ones we followed every year since we were teeny weeny. But since being in my relationship, my traditions and my husband’s family traditions have had to meld together. Which has, surprisingly, been pretty easy to combine. And it’s been fantastic because now we can pass on the traditions to our kids.

Though, I have to admit, there will be some recipes I need to start learning to keep those food traditions alive, especially from my mother-in-law.

My traditions:

1. Fish on Christmas Eve – For as long as I can remember, we would never have meat on Christmas Eve. It was always a big fish feast and in Italian culture we have The Feast of the Seven Fishes. As far as I know, we did this in regards to our Catholic upbringing and the tradition still lives on today.
2. Opening Christmas gifts at Midnight – As kids, we were allowed to stay up on Christmas Eve until midnight so that we could open a few gifts before heading to bed. Then the rest would be opened in the morning. My daughter is only 15 months right now, so this one will be left until she is older.
3. La Befana – The “Italian Christmas Witch” and she comes to visit January sixth to leave gifts and treats in the stockings that are hung and coal for those who have been naughty. I always loved this tradition as a kid, but it got lost in the holiday fray over time. HOWEVER, I’ve brought it back for my kids, and this was my daughter’s first visit from La Befana. Next year, La Befana will hopefully be revisiting my daughter and her new sibling. I’ve written a whole post about it if anyone is interested! La Befana
4. Christmas Decorating – Yes, we put up a tree and deck the whole place with Christmas decorations, which my daughter loves the twinkling lights. As the kids get older, they will be able to help decorate more and more. And of course, stockings need to be hung!
5. Christmas Stories – Every year I try to read a few classics for my daughter; The Grinch, Twas the Night Before Christmas, The Legend of Old Befana, The Legend of the Poinsettia. I’m sure there will be more added over time, but I love reading to her and she loves looking at the pictures as I read.
6. Cookies for Santa – Yup, you guessed it! We have to leave milk and cookies for Santa, but we can’t forget the reindeer either. I’ve even wood burned a special board specifically for it.
7. New Year’s Eve – I’ve created a tradition for our little family unit because the holidays are crazy with visiting family on both sides. So, my husband and I started the tradition of just staying in, cooking a really nice meal for ourselves and spending a quiet night in. Just us. It’s one of my favourites because now we get to include our kids in our night and frankly, the quiet alone time is amazing.
8. Good Friday – Another day where we eat fish due to religious reasons and we still keep this tradition alive today. It’s self explanatory; we have a big feast with pasta, a ton of different fish, vegetables and of course dessert.
9. Easter Egg hunt – We did this as kids and it was just a fun activity to keep us out of our parents hair for even just a little while. We’ve kept that tradition alive with my nephews and now my kids will be involved as well. This will be my daughter’s second Easter and she will able to understand a bit more about what’s going on.
10. Halloween – I deck out our house for Halloween because it’s truly one of my favourite holidays. We dress up (I always have some sort of theme or costume idea) and we go out Trick or Treating. I’d love to hand out candy as well, but I currently leave that to my parents. As the kids get older I’ll involve them more. I also watch a ton of spooky movies, which the kids won’t be involved in anytime soon!

My Husband’s traditions are based more on food that they eat during the holidays. During Christmas and Easter they eat: Sarmale (it’s Romanian style cabbage rolls – absolutely delicious!), Salată de boeuf (my mother-in-law makes it with cut up vegetables and folded into mayonnaise, sounds strange but oh man….so good!) and my personal favourite is Cozonac (it’s such a delicious sweet bread and my mother-in-law makes it from scratch with chocolate and nuts).

His family is Romanian and the tradition of cracking eggs at Easter is in celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. Basically it involves tapping colored hard-boiled eggs together to see who can crack the other’s egg. You pick your egg and one person says, “Cristos a înviat” (“Christ has resurrected”) and the next person responds “Adevarat a înviat” (“indeed, He has resurrected”). The winner is the person whose egg remains unbroken. The unbroken egg represents the person who will live the longest life.

And that’s it!

Sorry the post was so long, but we’re European/Canadians, we like our traditions. Hope you enjoyed!

What is your biggest tradition?

Ciao!