· Please find a way to do some relaxation and some ME time over the break....you all work VERY hard
Describe a routine or holiday ritual, using the 2nd person
“you”:
For example, “You stand in the steaming kitchen with people you
haven’t seen in almost a year. You wish your shirt didn’t have that tiny
stain on the cuff. You wish your aunt’s laugh wasn’t quite so
brittle. Feet stomp on the porch and you hurry to let your tall uncle in,
forgetting to keep the dog from escaping outside…”
I don't remember what I did last thanksgiving but the last one I remember I'll talk about, it changes up every year.
ReplyDelete"you enjoy the time you have to get ready, you love how your hair and make up looks, you love that you are wearing a scarf and a hat. You get to your dad's friends house and you remember his friend and his wife, but everyone else you don't really know so you look at the dogs and stay close to your dad. When it is time to sit down you sit down next to your dad and the nicest woman, you and this woman just get along so well. you love the green beans. shortly the dinner is over and you and you're dad go home"
Well I don't really celebrate a lot of holidays, but for my Islamic holiday Eid this is it.
ReplyDelete"You wake up in the morning, look out the window and feel the it in the air that today is going to be a good day, you see your little brothers and sisters getting ready putting on their brand new clothes as if they've never seen them before. You walk outside and the cold air fills your lungs, but you can't help fell that, this is what it means to feel good on a holiday, As you walk out of the door around 8:30 you see you whole family with your dad the only one dress to the nines while us dress as kids and teenagers do. As you arrive to prayer you see all these familiar and all of the faces you don't recognize anymore as they stare you down while entering the only entrance. As you find your place to sit in the Mosque you take another deep breath and start repeated the praise after your fellow brothers and sisters in Islam. Shortly after Prayer your whole family (extended family included) joins as you for breakfast as you start to hear your uncles arrive you family starts to panic a little bit because all the food wasn't prepared yet or something was missing that wasn't taken consideration for. As the day progresses shortly after breakfast the joy of the holiday turns to slow boredom as the families leave and all that is left to do is sleep as you worked through another family reunion.
I don't celebrate Thank Giving but I will write about Christmas.
ReplyDeleteYou expect everything to be just like it was last year. You go to the store with your parents to buy everything that is needed to make Tamales. In your way home you stop in the four corner street where you find the same family of people who where selling corn last year, you see them happy because their corn is selling fast. When you get home, your brother go down the 24 stairs just to help you get the food to the kitchen. Sometimes you help your mother to prepare the tamales, even though you don't know how, while somebody is out in the backyard preparing the bonfire. You see the dogs on the 3 floor barking because they are happy that there would be bones left from the meat that would be used for the tamales. You will see a kind guy (me) taking the dogs to the backyard so that they can get warm with the heath of the bonfire. When it get around 2 pm, you wait until you mother puts the corn into a pot on top of the bonfire, she does the same thing for the tamales so that the food cooks. Around 4pm, you can start by eating the corn in a stick. Around 6pm you see the whole family eating tamales. Around 8, you see the child being amuse by the sound of the fireworks. As usual, you would see the older people getting even drunker than what they already are. By 10 pm, you would see every person opening the gifts that once were under the Christmas pine. At the end of the day, you would see people leaving the house so that they can get to their house. You will see people saying bye to each others.
You hear your alarm clock go off at 7:30 am and as you open your eyes to reach over and shut off your alarm clock you get a whiff of the ham and turkey that has been slow cooking in the over for the past seven and a half hours. You crawl out of bed and into the shower and you let the hot water hit your skin and it feels wonderful as it runs down the small of your back just before it falls off your body and onto the ground at your feet. You grab your body wash and lather your skin and the soap washes away as you exfoliate your face and hands. Just as you step out of the shower you hear the other alarm clocks in your house go off and you feel relieved that you are done getting ready before everyone makes a mad dash to the bathroom to get ready. Since you are the first one to get ready you decide to start brewing the coffee; you of course don't drink coffee, but it's Christmas, and you feel nice, so you brew coffee for whomever in your house drinks it. As you walk from the kitchen into the living room, the room is lit up with lights and ornaments around the tree, and you notice that the floor beneath the tree that was empty just a few short hours ago is now filled with what looks to be like a million or more gifts. As everyone sits around the Christmas tree you pass the gifts around, one by one, watching your family members open their gifts with excitement and curiosity. The final gift is unwrapped, and it is now time to clean up and start getting the food ready to take to your aunts house. On the drive to your aunts house everyone in the car is playing with their new toys, games, gadget and gizmos. You finally turn down your aunts street, and you watch the brightly decorated houses pass you by. Finally you reach the end of the street and pull into your aunts drive way. As you walk up the pathway your cousins run out to greet you and welcome you in. You and your family sit down at the table and enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner. As you sit around eating, you discuss with your family how the year has passed so quickly. It's now time to head home, so you pile back into your car with more gifts, and head home.
ReplyDeleteYou try to open your eyes so that they can adjust to the shining light that streams through the window that your little brother has let in. Annoyingly, he begins to jump up and down on your bed, shaking your body until you moan and groan to express that you are halfway awake. “C’mon it’s Christmas, wake up, wake up!” Little do they know that christmas does not give you that same bubbly feeling that you used to get when you were younger. You wipe your starchy eyes and stretch obnoxiously with a high pitch squeal. Once you have risen out of bed and done your duties in the bathroom, you walk towards the living room and that awkward feeling hits when you take a glance at each room to notice that all the beds are empty. The family is waiting for you to share the christmas cheer and open gifts all at once; for how many years you have been doing this, you’d think you would set a timer so that you are not the last one to be up every year. Nevertheless, you are up and it is time to open gifts. Your heart fills with love and eyes fill with tears seeing how happy and thankful your siblings are. The perfect gift takes time for you to get and when you see the excitement in their reaction it makes you feel like you have done your job as a sister and daughter.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, you expect to have dinner at your house and have many relatives celebrating with you and your family. But this time is going to be different. You are going to celebrate thanksgiving at your aunt's sister's house. You don't know who else is going. People start coming to the event and you see familiar faces and start to engage in a conversation with them. You have dinner, you watch tv, and catch up with the people you had not seen in a while. When you get home, you realize that it was better than what you expected and that you had a really great time.
ReplyDeleteIt all starts two days before Christmas day!!! You go to the store and look for whatever ingredients you need for the recipe you found on YOU TUBE! You want everything to be perfect and tasty so you make the dish to see if what you are planning on doing for the Christmas dinner is really going to be good. The decorations at your house are not much of a deal for you so, you only decorated the windows with a tree made of lights and the door with a string of bells. You are not religious but there is something inside that encourages you to believe in whatever is out there. So, you always planned on going to church because you were raised catholic but you end up never going because you come back home questioning stuff from the sermon. So, on Christmas eve, you eat dinner with your family and sometimes with some friends. You are not fan of spending money on Christmas gifts because society has made this holiday to consume instead of spending quality time with the family. The very next day, you go to the beach and eat the left overs because they taste way better than the actual day you cooked them. Every year is the same, except for the food.......... but you keep doing it because you love that your immediate family tells you how a great cook and host you are.
ReplyDeleteYou wake up, shower and were some of your favorite cloths. You always put what you may need that day in case anything comes up as usual. Then you look for your mother and ask if she needs any help such as cooking or cleaning. If not you then sit down and wait. You're waiting for what ever comes next, whether if it's to leave your home to attend the holidays somewhere else or to wait for your family to get to you're house so everyone eats. Once you're entire family is eating you sit in an listen to their conversations of ideas, as they cut in edge wise to make fun of each other, watch as some act out to make some laugh or others act out for some attention. You join in with the dumb actions to pass time, counting down when it will be late enough for everyone to go home. Once everyone is gone you balance out in your head whether all off the extra food, usual antics and conversations were worth more than the negatives faced from this holiday. It's the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteYou wake up happy and thankful to know that you have a family and have something to be thankful for. You look in your closet to find a nice and comfortable outfit for tonight. You remind yourself that you don't have to eat as much as the last year and put yourself to sleep. You give your family a call and ask them when the food will be ready. You starve yourself because you know you will be eating too much food today. After you get to your moms house and see all she cooked your stomach rumbles even more. You stare at all the casseroles of food and don't know what to serve yourself first. You sit at the table with your food ready hoping that everybody hurries and serves themselves before you start eating. You eat, eat, and eat. After eating so much you realize that your shirt button popped and it is a sign for you to stop eating. It is the end of the day and you eat some pumpkin pie with milk before you go to sleep.
ReplyDeleteYou wake up bright and early, and begin to get ready for a morning work out since Evelyn is with her dad. You peak into your mom's room to make sure she is awake and getting ready as well. Since you are going to a yoga class, you skip breakfast to avoid feeling sick during the class. You heard your tia honk outside. You help your mom grab the yoga mats and water bottles and lock up the house. You greet your tia and primo, because he's in town from Cal Poly SLO. You get to the yoga studio, place your mat and begin to work out. The class was packed. After sweating for an hour, you hop in the shower and go home.
ReplyDeleteOnce home, you take everything out to start cooking. This year you're making bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, carrot cake and two apple pies from scratch. After 3 hours of cooking and baking, you're done and begin to get ready. By this time Evelyn is home now and ready. Now you get ready and put on your makeup. You and Evelyn are twins for the day, both wearing an off white, striped shirt and black pants. After a couple of selfies, you post the best one on instagram and check on the jalapenos. It's almost 4pm so you pack up all the food, turn on the christmas lights outside and drive off to your tia's house in Eastlake.
Once you arrive, you place your food on the main table and wait (because you and your mom and Evelyn are always the first to arrive anywhere, even if you are almost an hour late.) Family starts showing up and by 6pm everyone starts savaging on food. Your poppers are a big hit. As customary, everyone gathers in the living room after dinner and, one by one, gives says what they are thankful for. After that you continue to eat more.
It's getting late and Evelyn is fussy. So you ask your mom if she wants to go home and she says yes. You say goodbye to everyone and waddle to the car and make your way home.
Family ritual, huh? I don't really know what that's like. My family never really celebrated any type of holidays. Not because we don't believe in it, it's just that we were never really all together for it. Honestly, I couldn't have it any other way. I love how it is now. No stressing about the dinner, or biting each other gifts. Just another regular day to do as we please. Every once in a while, people try to make us celebrate one way or another, and when we end up doing something, it really pisses me off. I guess this is my family ritual by not really doing much.
ReplyDeleteFamily ritual, huh? I don't really know what that's like. My family never really celebrated any type of holidays. Not because we don't believe in it, it's just that we were never really all together for it. Honestly, I couldn't have it any other way. I love how it is now. No stressing about the dinner, or biting each other gifts. Just another regular day to do as we please. Every once in a while, people try to make us celebrate one way or another, and when we end up doing something, it really pisses me off. I guess this is my family ritual by not really doing much.
ReplyDeleteTo have relaxation during the break that you would get from school i would recommend for you to work out or do something outside and be active because it will give you plenty of me time. You should go by yourself so you can really get the time to think and know about what is going on in your life but also so you can get a full grasp of your life as well. For women i would always recommend retail therapy. As a girl you should be able to go shopping alone and dont bring a friend and try on what ever you like. When you do retail therapy you should go alone so you wont have that nagging friend that tries to hinder down on what looks good on you. Also just try to stay positive and also keep negative things out of your head. A holiday ritual that i have is i like to fully clean my room and house and light up new inscents so it can just have a new smell inside the house.
ReplyDeleteI celebrate Christmas and Karen New Year, but I will talk about the Karen New Year!
ReplyDeleteIn Karen New Year, you are really excited to wake up early to put on make-up and wear a Karen dress. You are really excited to celebrate the Karen New Year with your friends, family, and people who are also from different countries and have different cultures. You are so ready to sing a new year song with your friends on stage. You are ready to be a good audience, and waiting to hear the songs that other are singing. You are ready to dance for the Karen New Year Celebration. You are so happy that you will get to see your friends who live in Bakersfield! You are really happy, and take a lot of pictures with your friends and family. You are waiting to taste the Karen traditional food that are home made. You are really proud that many people have come to know who Karen people are. You really enjoy your time in the Karen New Year, and glad that you are able to celebrate it with your friends and family in the U.S.