Rituals

Being bi-cultural, I’ve had to give some thought to the rituals and holidays I want to incorporate for my family. Not living in India, it is challenging to celebrate Indian holidays to the level I would like. Sometimes, I am not able to remember or keep up with certain Indian holidays if I don’t see reminders somewhere, such as the Indian store. This is not an issue for Western holidays of course. There are reminders everywhere. Even though Thanksgiving has not arrived yet, we are all being reminded of Christmas. Culturally, I am fine with holidays that I grew up with here in the US playing a bigger part. All the holidays of any culture celebrate something nice, centered around love. Any language or culture that is expressed in is fine with me. With that in mind, I admit I enjoy the spirit of the Christmas season. I take part in decorating my home, singing Christmas carols with my family, and celebrating at my Unitarian church, along with baking what I can. Despite these rituals, I still consider myself a Unitarian and Hindu. If I were in India, the holidays and related celebrations there would get more prominence in my home.

Outside of the major holidays, I try to incorporate other rituals for my family. One ritual we have started is to celebrate my infant daughter’s monthly birthdays. Since she was born on the 8th, we celebrate the 8th of every month. Recently, for her 9-month celebration on November 8th, I cooked food I knew she would enjoy (spaghetti, which is fun finger food for her) and other goodies for us. She received toys and we sang and danced to the song we have decided is hers from us, Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours.” We have been singing this to her since the beginning of her life, and she seems to recognize it.

As an outcome of Maya’s monthly celebrations, I thought we should celebrate my son’s, so he is not left out. Then I thought why leave out my husband and I? With that in mind, My husband is celebrating his monthly birthday today, since he was born on the 18th. So yesterday was Colin’s Day and today is Porter’s Day. I’ve already put it on the calendar for next month and am looking forward to my day on the 9th. The rule is that you get to do whatever you want (within reason) and get an excuse to treat yourself. So my husband would say he had a good start this morning, which included not having to drop my son off to school since a neighbor started doing so. My daughter slept through the night and we got decent sleep as a result. Then he treated himself to the lunch he wanted and he gets to do whatever he wants tonight, which will probably include tennis since it is not too cold today, along with having the dinner and dessert he wants.

Since we didn’t realize it was Colin’s day yesterday until the evening, he is getting part of the day today for himself. That means Mom is doing everything! All the chores fall on me. Although, I am looking forward to tomorrow, the 19th, as it is no one’s day, I am also looking forward to Pria’s Day on the 9th. It is nice to have a day per month to do nice things for ourselves guilt-free and have a day to always look forward to!