Holiday (un)Traditions

Carmalyn Rose Buffardi Panzarella…..McCracken  – do I have your attention?  Yes, I am Italian.  I come from a big wonderful amazing Chicago Italian family.  Every holiday growing up was spent with numbers of crazy cousins, aunts & uncles, grandparents and parents…  Every holiday was spent with tons of food, lots of noise, loads of laughter, volumes of volume…  Every holiday was spent rushing to grama & grampa’s homes to be spent with everyone celebrating, visiting and loving.

Fast forward to the part of my name where the McCracken comes in.  I still remember my first holiday when I did not go “home” to Chicago to be with the chaos.  It was just my & my husband.  Very quiet.  I remember calling home and hearing all of the hustle and bustle and feeling home sick.

Fast forward to two kids and a dog and a cat later…  It’s funny, because whenever the holidays roll around I still have this sense of urgency to be with family.  Whether it’s Robert’s side or mine.  I just feel anxious that we are not all together with the chaos and celebration.  This time last year was our last Easter with our beloved Roger. I still remember my kids (aged 10 & 12) running through their small backyard hunting eggs.  Roger & Betty with their cameras to catch it on film.  Off to their church then to the Country Club for brunch.  It was a lovely day!  Little did we know it was our last celebration with Grandad and the kids…

This year we decided to stay here.  I kept panicking asking Robert “what are we going to do?  Where are we going to eat?”  If you know me, you know I am not the famous cook in the family!!!  I really felt anxious.  I talked to my sister and she told me how everyone was getting together at the Club again this year.   I secretly pined for that…What are we going to do?  What traditions are we going to make sure my kids remember????

Fast forward to this weekend.  I finally told myself to snap out of it!! Stop trying to keep the traditions of my childhood alive with my kids…it’s too hard.  I don’t live by my brothers and sisters and mom & dad.  I don’t cook big dinners…I don’t hide Easter baskets…I reminded myself, that we ARE our family traditions… We are laughter.  We are love.  We are together. We are coloring eggs.  We are finding (un)traditional Easter treats.  We are faithful members of our church. We are a quiet family of 4 creating our own traditions of (un)traditions.

So we colored our dozen eggs.    We spent an evening together visiting.  We got dressed up for church.  We praised and worshipped that indeed Christ has risen.  We decided that this Easter, P F Changs was calling our names.  When we were there it took over an hour to get our food!!!  We still don’t know why, but while we were waiting we were talking about funny memories, laughing at jokes, truly sharing our love with each other.  The manager came over to us and apologized for the long delay.  She said she had been watching us was amazed at our joyous time we had been having this whole time while waiting and so she wanted to comp our meals!!!  Seriously???  Gosh, we really are creating memories daily aren’t we?

 We ended the day with a run and game night.  We had a wonderful Easter.  Not your traditional ham & the fixins and the chaos of dozens of Italian relatives.  But our wonderful (un)tradition of kindness, joy, laughter, time spent together. I guess my lesson I learned AGAIN! is that I need to not live in the past but be present in the moment.  Let today make memories for tomorrow.  Let my past be part of me, but let my today be all of me. 

Today is indeed a blessed day and I do indeed thank God for our blessed little family of 4!