Tag: tradition

15 Jan 21 – Friday Night Rites

I didn’t have a lot of traditions and rituals in mind when I became a parent. Holidays and the lot, sure. But I don’t know that I had anything in mind apart what might come marked on calendars.

One surfaced in our first weeks as a family, though.

Every Friday, we order pizza and watch a movie. Which movie is on a choice rotation from oldest to youngest. The pizza is almost always Papa Murphy’s. (Every Friday, $5 large thin crust cheese, sausage, or pepperoni pizzas!) And, the movies can be television shows, holiday specials, or pieces of a few things until the chooser finds just the right film.

I’ve seen Season 2 Episode 2 of Netflix’s Ultimate Beastmaster more times than I can count. Same for Disney’s Zombies and Zombies 2.

Part of the fun of Friday Movie Night is its transgression against one of our other rituals – dinner together at the dinner table. Quite a little bit of research speaks to the importance of eating dinner together each night, but it just sort of happened for us.

Stealing from another movie The Story of Us, we take turns each night sharing our “high” and “low” from the day. Right now, it’s a lot of modeling from me. We also learned in our first couple goes that someone naming you in their description of their low for the day was not that person trying to make you feel bad or pick on you.

Many nights, the kids say they don’t have a low. Then I share mine, and they say, “Oh, that’s my low too.” This happens even if my low was about something that happened at work. I know what’s going on developmentally, so I never comment on it.

I know, if I let things develop organically, when we enter adolescence, this piece of ritual will give me some rare glimpses into their lives.

It’s also why the transgression of Family Movie Night is so important to us. We get to eat DOWNSTAIRS! We watch TV while we eat. We get to stay up late, though one of us tends to be zonked about 45 minutes in.

When we have visitors on Fridays (which used to be a thing), the kids are excited to welcome them into our tradition. It’s special for us, so it will clearly be special for our guests. It’s a testament to my friends that they’ve stuck out some pretty heinous choices.

In both these cases, it has struck me how easily these rituals came into being. No special forethought to get them started, no real planning. How easy these little things became big and important parts of who we are.

Come on in; are you hungry?

A cookie tin sits on my counter. There’s a cartoonish Santa face on the lid. Inside are what you might call sugar cookies. I would be quick to correct you. These are grandma cookies, and a freshly-filled tin of them has traveled home with me from celebrating Christmas with my family for as long as I have lived outside of the city limits of my hometown.

When I was younger, my gramma asked if I wanted to help her make the Christmas cookies. Mind you, this was sometime in the Fall, so my tiny self thought she was joking. Not one for abject silliness, my gramma explained that she made the cookies in the Fall so she could have them ready during Christmastime and be a little more available to be with our family. That was the first important lesson I learned that day.

The other began with the words, “Where do you think you’re going?” It turns out, you’re not done baking cookies in my grandmother’s kitchen until the kitchen has been returned to it’s pre-cookie state. To the dismay of my tiny self, this meant washing bowls, spoons, pans, and other paraphernalia. Cookies aren’t all fun and games.

There’s the tradition – cooking. The whole process, from start to finish, of preparing nourishment for those we love is something I know other families share on a regular basis. At the same time, it feels unique to mine. From my gramma’s Christmas cookies to my mom’s potato soup that serves up much larger than anyone should expect its half dozen ingredients to be able to do, cooking, feeding, sharing a meal with those I love is a tradition I can’t shake.

To feed another is not only to say, “Here’s something to eat,” it is also to give of your time, to share in your skills, and to welcome the cleaning and tidying up these meals can necessitate because these people are worth it.

When I was in undergrad, living in a squalid and terrifyingly over-priced apartment, I invited my friends over for a full-on four course meal at the center of which was served a rack of lamb. Nevermind my vegetarianism and completely disinterest in consuming what I’d cooked. I’d heard it was difficult and fancy. That seemed like a great place to start in showing my friends how much they meant to me. I cannot remember how the lamb turned out. I can picture everyone sitting around the coffee table on suspect carpet, eagerly sharing the meal and ridiculous stories served on paper plates.

This post is part of a daily conversation between Ben Wilkoff and me. Each day Ben and I post a question to each other and then respond to one another. You can follow the questions and respond via Twitter at #LifeWideLearning16.