Family Traditions--Blending Cultures

My husband is half Italian, half German. I'm mostly European, but I have strong Cuban and Native American (Blackfoot) roots. When it comes to Christmas, I'm used to Cuban and Euro-American customs. Mr. Muse is used to Italian/Euro-American customs. And, now, we blend all of these together...

It seems it mostly centers around food. Mr. Muse and his Italian family make "ravs" every year. It's a process where you make a spiced meat mixture, cool it, and then hand make a dough...run it through a press, and "wrap" the "ravs"---which are something like a meat-filled tortellini, only not quite so doughnut shaped. It has become a competitive party, where family members compete to make the best "rav" every year. Mr. Muse's eldest sister, who has rheumatoid arthritis, and can't participate in the conventional way, judges. My American Mutt daughter has now won 2 of the past 3 or 4 years...eh, she's an artist...

My family NEVER had a turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas. NEVER. We had fried chicken much of the time, but ordinarily, the main dish was roast beef. It wasn't the Christmas dinner so much as the after-delights I'm concerned with for this post. Grandma was from Cuba. The leftovers from the roast from Christmas was generally ground, and became a filling for empanadillas the following week. Empanadillas are now my very fondest memory of holiday gatherings...even if it was mostly a post-holiday event. None of the surviving family members can duplicate Grandma's recipe...and she never wrote down what she did. I think I've come the closest, but my dough was still too thick.

Empanadillas are little fried pies, with generally a meat stuffing--but can be dessert or fruit based too. If it's a Cuban meat pie, you can bet there is a fair amount of garlic & onion, and the filling was usually beef in our family, but I do remember Grandma making pork empanadillas ONCE from a leftover pot roast. I don't think they went over very well with the family, so I don't think she made them again.

Grandma wholly embraced the cookie tradition too...and for the longest time, I embraced her tradition...until I ate too much of what I made & started to gain weight. I no longer have a sense of smell either, and a HUGE part of holiday baking for me was how the house smelled.

I just feel sort of bad for my daughter. I don't really have a holiday tradition to pass onb to her. But, maybe I shouldn't feel all that bad...because if you REALLY think about this...she has a LOT of different traditions to choose from and to make her own. Including my ex-husband's family tradition of celebrating on Christmas Eve-and their traditional English toast at a certain time every Christmas Eve here. Maybe she actually has the best of all worlds though...and tonight, her boyfriend, Sho, learned the art of Italian Rav making. I told him that he'll have to come back to enjoy the soup they will make...and that he also needed to experience some Cuban food. He's Japanese, and these are outside of what he's experienced so far. He's a good guy...

In other news...I still have a blessed infection...sinus and eye, so have been going to work, coming home and crashing a lot. So, imagine how excited I was by my good fortune that I was able to complete my Christmas shopping in 2 nights. I wrapped most everything last night. Plus stuffed the stockings, so I only have a tiny bit to wrap tomorrow.

The kidlet leaves for Indianapolis in less than 2 weeks. I'd love to just spend a day with her...depends on what type of work we have. If it's slow, I might approach the bosses where I work, and ask for a day off before she leaves. Really iffy right now. We were soooo busy, I got overtime last week. But now we have little to do--probably holiday related? Anyway...maybe I'd be better off saving a day off now and again to spend a long weekend with her. She only has school 3 days a week...so we could spend time with her if she gets too homesick...