Buttercups & Burlap

What special traditions or holiday celebrations does your family observe?

Considering that Christmas was last month; I should probably spend a little time on those traditions. My mother’s family is Hungarian. No Christmas was complete without my grandmother’s walnut roll or apple square or red cabbage. My mother usually hosted Christmas Eve dinner and my cousins and I would get to open one present after dinner –we lived for it. Christmas Day was always spent with my father’s family. Now that I am grown and married my husband and I host both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with a ton of food. On Christmas morning, we wake up and open our stockings and then feast on Wifesaver made by my mother-in-law. Then we open all the other gifts. It is wonderful watching our nieces and nephews open their gifts. Another tradition in our family is that for everyone’s birthday, my mother-in-law hosts an amazing dinner and the birthday person gets to pick the menu; for example my sister-in-law and nephew always pick ham and hashbrown casserole; my husband always picks angel food cake. Every February a friend and I book a room at the Hotel Mac and have a luxurious “fancy bitches” staycation; we have even started doing it in the summer too! Another tradition I have is that every girls’ weekend with my best friend from Calgary always have Kraft dinner for breakfast because we used to do it ALL the time in university. And every couple of years we go and walk around the campus and reminisce and marvel at how the campus has changed.

What about you?

From Piccadilly‘s 200 Writing Prompts

Do you have anyone in your life that has acted as a mentor to you? Have you ever helped someone else out in this way?

I have had many mentors over the course of my 36 years of life. They have all imparted something different but equally important on me. The most obvious mentors would be family members, however, apart from them, the most impactful mentors have been my teachers. My kindergarten teacher taught me to love learning and is the reason I wanted to become a teacher. My Spanish teacher in high school perhaps was a once in a lifetime mentor; she guided me and gave me advice during some of the darkest periods of my life. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of her. We have lost touch sadly, but I like to think that she would be proud of me. When I first started teaching my first principal and vice-principal took me under their wing and I am forever grateful for that. First year teaching can be extremely difficult. I try to be a mentor to my students of course. I had the opportunity to be a “mentor-teacher” for a university student and although I didn’t feel worthy of this prestigious position it allowed me to grow and it allowed me to realize how much I had learned over my many years of teaching and how much I had to offer to someone. Being a more senior staff member I try to help beginning teachers as much as possible.

What about you?

From Piccadilly‘s 200 Writing Prompts

I love journaling; it has become part of my “being intentional” routine that I have talked about in an earlier post. Piccadilly makes it so easy! I also love sharing my journal with you all…

What about you?