My Family Traditions

  One of my family's traditions that we do yearly is celebrate New Year's Eve with both sets of my grandparents. New Year's Eve is when people get together to celebrate a new year. Common things that can be found on New Year's Eve are parties, music, traditional dinners that include things like turkey, potatoes, more food, lots of people and fireworks. We celebrate it on December 31st, the last day of the Gregorian calender. Even though most celebrate New Year's on December 31st not everyone does. The Chinese celebrate their New Years on different dates. In 2012 it will be celebrated on January 23rd, which will be the Year Of The Dragon.

   This tradition is an old one that has been going on since my mother and father met. They realized on their first New Year's Eve together that they both celebrate it the same way. They always visit their parents and have a large feast. So,they decided to keep the tradition going but, they decided to have the feast with everyone together.

    Our New Year's Eve is special because my maternal grandparents, paternal grandparents, mum, dad and I celebrate it together. On my first New Years Eve my mum's parents, my mum, my dad and I went over to my dad's parents house. My paternal grandma made a huge feast of turkey, roast potatoes, traditional Turkish Cypriot foods and a traditional dessert where a cake is baked and a coin is put in it and whoever gets the piece with the coin gets good luck. For the next few New Year's Eves, everyone started coming over to my house and my mum would cook. My dad's parents were getting too old to come all the way to our house (my paternal grandma is now 96!!!) so currently,my mum cooks the food and we all head over to their house.

   When I have a family of my own I will definitely keep this tradition going. I will because this is a great way to spend a celebration. When you're with your family fun things happen, you laugh, you're happy, it's just great. You also have a whole bunch of stories to tell. For instance on my first New Year's Eve, I was asleep until midnight then I woke up until 3 or 4 am. This then continued as a pattern for a few weeks.....! That’s what I mean by stories. There's nothing better than spending time with your family, especially on a celebration :).