How I celebrate Holidays

Holidays are awesome. They give you a break from life to spend quality time with your family and friends. Every holiday is a little different, but I usually spend each mostly the same, with plenty of festivities that I’ll remember the rest of the year.

Almost every major holiday, our family gathers to reconcile and enjoy each others’ company. Usually, we rotate whose side of the family we go to, but we mostly my dad’s side because he has a larger family. I always look forward to seeing my grandparents, cousins, etc., when we have a family gathering. It’s never a bad experience, as there’s always cheerful smiles and laughs from everyone. We almost always have some sort of meal together. Everyone brings something homemade, and we set a large table. Everyone sits down, we pray, and then we politely ask for dishes that we want to be passed around. The food is always delicious, and there’s always something I can find to eat, despite me being pescatarian. The desserts are also great; usually someone makes an old, handed-down recipe. After dinner, the children either play outside while the adults converse in the living room, or we all play a family game together. Sometimes we play a card game, but there are also fun seasonal games. One game I remember is that we pretended someone was a Christmas tree, and we had to decorate them. During Christmas we also like to build gingerbread houses, carefully crafting a perfect, colorful cottage for the gingerbread men.

There are some holidays where I don’t do much, though. Halloween is one of them, because I don’t eat candy and I don’t enjoy dressing up. We usually do something for Easter as well, but it isn’t always a family gathering. It’s still nice though because my close family has a nice meal together, and usually we do something fun, like go to the Mall of America. We used to do egg hunts when I was little, but me and my sister just don’t enjoy it as much anymore. However, we do get Easter Baskets, which always contain something we like. This year, I got canned fish and planting seeds in mine, which I was actually very pleased with.

I love the holidays. To me, they aren’t really about gifts or delicious food, but more about connecting with family. I know that someday I won’t have as many family members as I do now, so every moment with each of them is precious. I make the most of that time while I can, and who knows, someday I might have my own family, and we can continue the traditions of the past.