Chapter 2 - Blending with the family, and family rituals

I learned so much even during the first few weeks of living with them. I told my mother that I didn’t like vegetables, but I liked potatoes and a few other things. She would just smile at me, and explain that potatoes were vegetables. I was used to drinking soda pop on a daily basis and I was used to plopping myself in front of the television. I would assume that the television was a form of babysitting when I was in foster care, so it was something I was very used to. My parents limited the intake of my soda, and I was also limited to the amount of time I would spend glued to the television. Both parents were educators, so they spend time teaching me things, such as how to read and write, the environment, and other critical things I missed from traveling from one place to another.

We had morning rituals that make me smile to think about now. Rituals and routines may seem silly, but I had never had structure or a routine before, so something that happened in a “normal” fashion everyday was something I looked forward to. My father worked at Marathon Oil and was Vice President. He would get up in the mornings and have breakfast with us, and then he would leave. My mother, Kendra and I would go to the side window and wave at him every single morning as he drove off. A lot of times, my sister and I would have a spatula that my mother had just made cheesy bread with, and we would be licking off of it when we waved goodbye to him. One time, Kendra had accidentally laid the spatula down while she waved goodbye, and it landed on a cactus (my mother was a flower lover, and cacti was one of her favorites to have in the house). Without realizing what she had done, she put the spatula up to her mouth, and licked the cheese off of it, cactus needles and all. The poor girl had to stand still while my mother plucked all of the needles out of her mouth.

Other rituals included having dinner at the same time every night. We would all be together at 6pm and the television would be off. This was the time of communicating and reflecting how everyone’s day had gone. Everyone had their moment to shine and talk about school or work. The kitchen was a big source of togetherness as well. My mother was an excellent cook and my sister and I spent hours in the kitchen talking and doing homework as she cooked. She could make the entire house smell as if you had walked into a gourmet restaurant. She was amazing. She also liked to bake and make canned goods to store during the winter time. She had a vegetable garden and a flower garden and she definitely had a green thumb. I did not pick up those traits at all, which is disheartening. I would have loved to learn to cook like her, and have a green thumb like her.

Holidays and birthdays were celebrated as if you were the only person in the universe who existed. As I stated before, family togetherness was essential with my parents, so they made it a priority to make everyone feel accepted, special and loved.   Christmas was one of the biggest holidays for us and we celebrated it in style.  We would go together and pick out a real tree and my sister and I would argue over which one was the biggest. We usually chose a very tall tree, because my parents had kept all of the ornaments from when they were a child, so we had to have a lot of room to decorate. I remember the smells of a new tree and the pine needles constantly dropping onto the floor. We would spend hours placing ornaments onto the tree, because we couldn’t just put an ornament up without discussing where it was from. We had ornaments from my parents childhood, from when they were first married, from when my sister was born, from school, and a variety of other special ones we had to talk about. We would laugh and reminisce about special moments in our lives, and the entire house was always filled with love and peace. I hold that tradition close to my heart, and we do the very same thing with my own family. My children love to talk about the new ornaments that we get every year, and they are excited to see the old ones as well.

My sister and I each had advent calendars during the season, and would always look forward to opening up a new window. We would laugh and squeal and show our parents what was under the new window. On Christmas Eve, we always went to the midnight service at Church. We would be exhausted by the time we got home, which was usually a good thing for my parents since they still had wrapping to do. Kendra and I would go to bed and were told NOT to get up before 8:00am. Otherwise, we would be running downstairs to try and wake them up long before they were ready to be up.

We had a beautiful ceramic nativity scene which we put out every year. The only thing that we did not put out in advance was the baby Jesus. He was born on Christmas day, so the ceramic Jesus was packed away safely before His special day. A tradition we had in our family, was that the youngest child (me) would be the one to place the baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning. We would all stand around the nativity scene together, and we would say “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” Coffee was brewed, and breakfast was being made as the four of us would get ready to open our Christmas gifts.

We opened up our Christmas gifts one at a time. It’s not like how my family does it now, where everyone rips open their present, looks at it for a moment, and then goes on to the next one. No, my family took their time. The person who wrapped the gift, would usually write a hint on the card, and the receiver would have to try and guess what the hint meant. Sometimes we got it, and other times we didn’t. Once the gift was open, however, we would understand the full meaning of the hint. One person opened their gift, as the others sat and watched. We would all look at the present and talk about it, and figure out where it came from or why it was being given. Then the next person would open up their gift and so on. Opening gifts for us, was an all day experience. We would take a break sometime during the morning to have a big breakfast, and then we would get back to it. By mid afternoon, we would all be tired, and we would usually take a nap, or Kendra and I would be in our rooms admiring what we received. We made phone calls to family members thanking them for our gifts, and would wish them a very Merry Christmas. These traditions have a very special place in my heart.



To be continued....