**NWQOTD Wednesday**

So with all this diversity talk I decided to make this about our different cultures...it's a 3 parter...

What is your favorite tradition in your culture? What is your favorite tradition of DH's culture? And what traditions will you bring with you when you start a family?

My favorite tradition in my culture on my dad's side is the lasagna for Christmas dinner. Favorite tradition on mom's side is watching the kids look for the Afikomen after Passover dinner (notice mine always has to do with food)! We also ALWAYS have HUGE holiday dinners which my dad said he got from my grandparents since the Italian's LOVE food and family!

My favorite tradition of DH's culture is the fishes on Christmas Eve! MMMMMM!!!!

We plan on raising our children Catholic but plan on continuing with traditional Jewish holidays, as well as the Catholic holidays, same way I was raised. As DH said to me 'you're still Jewish so I expect Mazah Ball soup on the holidays still'! LOVE HIM! We're also going to continue with a big Christmas Eve, fish dinner but his sister said she'll do that and we'll do Christmas Day (so my sister's can join us).

I'm Italian and Irish so there aren't many unique things to my culture but my family does like to party and we celebrate just about anything that occurs so I definitely want to bring that into our own family.

My DH is Portuguese (his Dad is off the boat) and although this sounds barbaric it really isn't. Every summer his father will have atleast one Pig Roast. He actually built an outdoor 'pig cooker' not a spit, like this ceramic and brick oven... anyway... It's not the pig that makes it fun it's the entire day it's cooking that I love. When the family is all outside hanging out dancing to Portuguese music, drinking and going back to his dads roots that's a lot of fun. I definitely want to try and continue that as long as we can.

as i said in the diversity post, i am pretty american-ized, so some traditions we have include the basic holidays but nothing over the top. whereas, dh's family is straight from italy so they really go over the top with all of the holidays and cook sooo much food. its so much fun.

i hope we find a happy medium, because i cant pull off all that cooking, but i still like the big celebrations

some other 'traditions' for our family was taking road trips, spending summers together, going to disney, etc. i definitely want to keep that type of tradition up with traveling. dh only visited italy when he was younger to see family. i def. have the travel bug, so i expect to keep that up!

My dads side is Italian and my mom is mainly German , but also, French, English, Dutch, Scottish, Danish.

My mom didnt carry any of her traditions over so I am not sure what they were. Everything was always my dads traditons. My favorite is Christmas Eve. The fish and the gathering of the family.

DH has no traditions- its pretty sad. He was an only child and had only 3 cousins. They never did much to celebrate anything. When he was little they would go to his grandparents for holidays and occassions but after they all passed away they were no traditions they kept up on. They would eat dinner and do their own things. What is even sadder he doesnt understand why my family makes such a big deal out of occassions. i think he is starting to get it though.

I am hoping to continue my family traditions even long after my parents are gone

St. Patrick's Day!! DUH!

Honestly, I've always loved Irish Step Dancing. I used to perform in the St. Patty's Day parade, compete at feises, etc. Funny enough, ILs made DH, BIL, and SIL all do Irish Step Dancing when they were kids. I noticed DH tapping out a beat with his shoes while he was playing video games last night and recognized it as a jig. I just smiled but didn't say anything, he's always so embarassed about it.

For my kids, I wouldn't force them into taking up step dancing like my ILs did, but I'd definitely encourage them to try it!

My mom always had a big christmas brunch when we were younger...More people in the house than the house could hold, but we always had fun and such good food!
My Dad's side - any holiday, my Gma would always make 'rabbit ears'... (her family was from the Ukraine.. they're really known as Chrusciki, but we always called them rabbit ears!) I miss them so much!!

On DH's side - Christmas Eve is huge...It's at his sister's house, his BIL is a caterer and does all the cooking. It's not just Seven Fishes at their house, its more like 37 Fishes... Huge food.

DH and I want to take over the Thanksgiving Holiday...(as soon as we have a house!).
Neither of our families really do a big gathering for it - we want the big, sit down turkey day...and it doesn't hurt that it's always going to be around our anniversary!