Tuesday, November 01, 2005

• Breaking Tradition

  Like most families, my family has plenty of holiday traditions.  Christmas Eve we have an Italian feast of shrimp and fried oysters before Midnight Mass and, in the morning, have to drag my dad out of bed before we can open presents.  I am usually the first awake, and though everything under the tree is off-limits, my stocking is fair game.  St. Patrick's Day brings corned beef and cabbage, something most of us can stomach only one day a year.  Easter Vigil is my favorite religious celebration of the year, and then we sleep in Easter morning and stuff ourselves with chocolate, jelly beans, ham, and deviled eggs.  In past years, Mama has awoken her dear children on July 4th with blaring Sousa on trumpet.  Remember that my dad was Air Force for the first nineteen years of my life, and my mom grew up a military brat as well.  The week before school was its own sort of holiday.  Mama dragged us all clothes shopping.  We usually went in order of age - me first, then my sister, then my brother.  I guess the idea was to keep up the excitement for those whose attention spans were shorter.  Then there was school supply shopping.  I always loved fresh pencils and notebooks, highlighters and looseleaf.  I remember graduating to college-ruled paper, the penultimate.  Never again could I bring myself to look at wide-ruled stuff, the bane of my existence.

  That brings us back in the year to Halloween.  Depending on where we lived, the weather was cool or snowy.  We'd bundle up, warm up with the requisite grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, and be on our way.  Costumes were usually hand made with stuff found from home.  When I was much younger, my mother sewed together a lion costume for me, I believe.  Things became less spectacular as time went by.  I dressed in my dad's flight suit one year.  In middle school, the last year I'd let myself trick-or-treat, my girlfriends and I dressed up in pajamas and put our hair in pigtails.  I was going to wear fuzzy slippers, but then it decided to snow all night.    After getting back from the trick-or-treating adventure, my sister and I would sit across from each other on the floor, dump out our pillowcases, and start grouping and organizing our loot.  Once we knew what we had, we'd begin the trading system.  Laura's top pick was always bubble gum, and because I wasn't used to chewing it and it hurt my jaw (and I'm a pig), it wasn't high on my priority list.  I'd trade her a piece for a mini Milky Way, my favorite.  The exception was the BlowPop, which topped all our charts - except the grape ones.  Other chocolates were favored in due rank.  I actually liked Smarties, Sweet Tarts, Shock Tarts, and the like, but I tried not to let my sister know this.  I was a sneaky older sister, but further examples of my conniving and cajoling will be left for another day.  When I became too old to trick-or-treat, I began taking over my mother's job of passing out candy.  She always volunteered to do that when we were little and made my dad parade us around the neighborhood in search of cavities.  We'd put on some scary music (usually Bach, I must say) on our stereo system and smile at all the little kiddies.    In college we had various parties among my friends.  There was always candy and cider and usually some trick-or-treaters coming around to different apartments.

  Yesterday was different.  I came to work sans costume, although I thought about being a mouse.  I got some candy because I knew there wasn't any at home.  We made a pasta dish for dinner, which was pretty good but not Halloweenish, and then I disrupted my brother's plans by having him and husband come up to move our stuff out of the apartment.  I hope they're successful in doing a lot of this right now.  Andrew wanted to watch Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas.  I told him I'll watch both of them with him this weekend.  We'll have our own belated celebration.  I'm sure candy will still abound in my parents' house.

  In other news, now that I've talked your ears off about some of my childhood memories, I am excited to say that I'll probably have another job interview in the Dayton area sometime next week.  There was a message on my machine last night from the teacher education department at UD.  I am so excited!  Off I go to do some work.  Happy Birthday, Mother-in-law!  And a good(?) Dia de los Muertos!

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