Day 27: Traditions - Old X New Ones

[Rebeca70]

As I considered what to write for the 2022 Month of Celebration, I thought about holidays, traditions, and how I would like to spend this holiday season. I also thought that though I lost both my parents in an 11 months time frame between December 2016 and November 2017, I should consider myself a fortunate person, since I did not lose either a family member or a close friend due to Covid19. Don’t worry, it is not going to be a sad post, my parents lived a full and long life, their passing was part of the circle of life (yeah!!! It's a The Lion King reference), and I am truly grateful for their life. 

For almost 50 years, I had spent the holiday season at my parent’s house. So, after their passing, I decided to travel during this time of the year and have different experiences. During the pandemic, I stayed at home with my daughter and youngest sister for the holidays. But as I said at the beginning, with the approach of the “most wonderful time of the year” again, I started thinking about what kind of traditions, if any, I’d like to be celebrating during this season of love, and most importantly, I’d like to really celebrate it at home, emphasis on celebrate.

Summarizing, my favorite cousin on my mom’s side of the family came to visit during Christmas. My youngest sister was working in Qatar for the FIFA World Cup, and my daughter decided to celebrate Christmas with her dad this time. On the other hand, my middle sister decided to join our cousin (with her family), and myself. As planning started, one thing became clear for all of us. We did NOT want to get all stressed out with Christmas shopping, Christmas decoration, and spending all day cooking a dinner of too many dishes that we would barely enjoy because we'd be too tired by dinner time. But we DID want to have a great time together, we wanted to celebrate the fact that after more than 3 years we were getting together again.

It’s summer in Brazil, so our plans included going to the beach, trying new restaurants around town, some lazy time, and a special dinner on December 24th. It was a special dinner not because of fancy dishes but because all of them had a meaning to us. We cooked together a special kind of casserole that we call in the family “Garden Casserole” with a recipe that goes back to our Italian Grandma, my cousin made her dad’s Penne with Broccoli and Bacon recipe. I baked my favorite focaccia’s recipe and made a batch of hummus dip, my dad was from a Lebanese family, and hummus was a must have during the holiday season. It didn’t take us longer than 3 hours to get dinner ready and set a beautiful table with my mom’s favorite china and table towel. For dessert, we choose panettone and fresh fruits. We probably spent more time together around the dining table: eating, drinking, talking, laughing, remembering funny family memories, than we had spent cooking, which was our goal.

Yesterday (I’m re-writing this post on December 26th), during breakfast, we decided that this is going to be our tradition from now on, taking advantage of the holiday season break to get together and: enjoy each other’s company, cook together, keep the memories of those who are not physically with us anymore, and create new memories of ourselves and our families together. We want to take advantage of the season to celebrate ours and each other's lives.

So, my questions to you are: which Holiday Season traditions would you like to keep? Which ones do not make sense anymore? Which new traditions would you like to create to celebrate this season or any season?

I am sharing my grandma’s recipe as a way to invite you into my celebration. In case you try it, let me know if you liked it… P.S. I always like it better the next day.

GARDEN CASSEROLE (Grandma Zulmira's Recipe)

Ingredients:

20 chopped black olives

2 shopped medium onions

1 cup of chopped fresh parsley, cilantro, green onions, basil, peppermint (you choose the ones you’d like to use)

5 shopped tomatoes, unpeeled and without seeds

3 eggs whisked

50 grams of grated Parmesan cheese

7 tablespoons of wheat flour

1 tablespoon of baking soda

1 cup of olive oil (not to full)

Directions: Mix all the ingredients together and add the baking soda at the end.

Put all the mix in a Pyrex or any baking pan, there is no need to grease it, and bake it in a hot oven for approximately 25 minutes until crispy golden, time may vary by oven.

[Laurelle3]

@Rebeca70 thank you for sharing your special time with your sister and cousin cooking and your families Garden caserole receipe.