My Favorite Family Traditions

My diet primarily consists of traditional Nicaraguan foods such as gallo pinto (rice and beans mixed together) regularly with cuajada (type of cheese) and soft tortillas meat wise, primarily chicken, steak and pork beverages such as pinolillo (cornmeal cacoa based drink). Snacks, consisting of rosquillas (corn masa cookies). This refers to my ethnicity, Nicaraguan. Moreover, my race of being Hispanics due to traditions and the celebration of holidays: Semana Santa, Christmas, Thanks Giving, Easter, and Palm Sunday and rite of passage, Quincernera. Semana Santa (Holly week) is the joyful celebration of the commemoration of crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Crist. The highlights of Semana Santa are touring the streets with floats, traditional candle lighting, different decorations in the city streets, and religious ceremonies. My father travels every year for Semana Santa; I have traveled three times for the experience. My family also celebrates: Christmas, Thanks Giving, Easter, and Palm Sunday. With every holiday, we all as a family go to church. Both in Nicaragua, and the United States a major rite of passage for girls is the celebration of their Quincernera; which is the transition for the fifteen-year-old girl to transition to a woman. Highlights of a Quincernera consisting with a lot of dancing, food, alcohol, the beautiful dress and all eyes on her, and most importantly the acknowledgment of the girl transitioning into a woman. Remembering my Quincernera was the most stressful party planning of my life. Nevertheless, the reward of my experience was the once of the best experience of my life. The realization in my family’s eyes as I transited into a woman, my father’s eyes when he saw me in my beautiful dress was absolutely priceless. My father looked at

`The Hmong New Year is a cultural celebration that occurs annually, in the months of November and December, in areas where large Hmong population exists. In this speech, I am going to share the three main components that make up the celebration of Hmong New Year, such as the culture of the food, tradition clothes, and the activities that are involved.

One such tradition is not socializing with neighbors but only talking to her sisters or other family members. Both of my great-grandparents came from a large family and so the Sunday was always considered family day. It was nothing to see a yard off of kids playing or see the men playing a game of horseshoes as the women would set out the dinner. However, it was the winter time that holds the most memories for my mother. It was then that the families would all gather at the family pond and go ice skating and the men would build a big fire and everyone would stand around and drink hot chocolate. One such tradition in the winter time was right after the first snow fall of the season. We would take a big mixing bowl and go out and fill that bowl as full as we could. Then she would go in and make a big bowl of snow ice cream (Food in Every County). One bright sunny day, our family was going to Lake Pomme De Terre for a family picnic. Like Shteyngart, I was all set for some grilled hamburgers or hot dogs or even some fried chicken. However, that was not meant to be. Like Shteyngart, is aw food being set out that was I saw food that was familiar to my great-grandmother’s culture. Instead of grilling hamburgers, she set out chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans and for dessert a shoofly pie, sugar cookies, and schnitz pie, which is made with dried apples (Food in Every County). My mother laughed when she saw my face because later my

Americans and Hispanics have different family traditions that dictate how each holiday is celebrated. On Christmas, which begins December 25th, Americans have a tradition to decorate a pine tree and stocking resting over a fireplace. A large meal is prepared and cookies are left by the fireplace with a glass of milk for santa claus. Families get together and open presents. In hispanic culture christmas is celebrated on December 24th (nochebuena) and is highly religiously with the three kings replacing santa clause. A meal and the decorations are still common among the two groups, however the celebration of cooking a meal with the family ensues one day prior to American Culture. Another difference is that children are raised to leave a box of hay for the camels to feed on while the three kings stop at each home. New Year's in American Culture is celebrates with a sip of an alcoholic beverage such as champagne or sparkling non-alcoholic drinks. Hispanics celebrate the night with an alcoholic drink named coquito. Coquito is made on Christmas and New years. Everyone in the family takes a sip of coquito when the ball dropped on New year's

Tamales have the power of merging family. Christmas eve in Mexico means interacting and bonding with the whole family. When the holiday season begins and everybody gathers at Grandmother’s house you can trace the smell of tamales getting cook in the kitchen mixed with the smell of cinnamon. The Christmas tree is bursting with presents and on the side the nativity scene which is always present in a Catholic Mexican family. The table is brimming in flavors, with a variety of dessert and snacks and delicious hot drinks. As appetizing as the table looks the whole family is barely touching the food because the tamales are almost ready and everybody wants to eat as many tamales as possible. When the tamales are ready it means that Christmas Eve celebration is staring. Everyone from the oldest in the house to the youngest gets a plate and eats as many tamales as possible while sharing stories and laughs. The tamales are the main guest of the celebration. The tamales are a traditional Mexican food that can be traced to the Aztecs. The word tamale comes from the Aztec word tamalii which means wrapped food. The Aztec women would cook the tamales for the soldiers because they were easy to carry and eat. Today making tamales is a bonding event for all the women in the family,

I have found the sweet sixteen party is quite similar to a Quinceañero birthday party. Probably the most distinct similarities are that they are both an event that celebrates a girl’s transition from childhood to womanhood. They are both an important part of the culture, as well as are quite elaborate and usually expensive, depending on the type of party the parents want. They celebrate when a girl becomes a woman, which is a major stage in life because adults have more privileges and responsibilities. This is a big part of their culture because it is celebrated by almost all Spanish girls when they become women. Most of the time, these parties are elaborate, as they only happen to a person once in their entire

An important tradition is Posadas, occurring 9 days preceding Christmas. The celebration is in preparation for baby Jesus and a reenactment of the journey of Mary and Joseph. Each night the celebration takes place at a different house. The festivities include praying with the rosary, singing, re-enacting asking for lodging, and concludes with food and a celebration. The figures for the Posadas were passed down from Maria’s great grandparents Josefa and Miguel. The original festivities have been getting gradually passed down to Maria and her siblings, they take turns hosting a night of Posadas which are assigned on a first come first served basis. These traditions are slowly being passed down to the nieces and nephews as Maria and her siblings grow older. Popular foods served are bunuelos (similar to an elephant ear with homemade syrup), sopas (little corn tortillas with sauce topped with meat), and tamales on Christmas Eve made with chicken and

Thanksgiving Holiday means so much to me. I love to celebrate that extended weekend with my family. On the eve of the big day, my cousins and I meet at an elder’s house and then the festivities began. This shared feast started in 1621 with the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians sharing a harvest feast ("Thanksgiving," 2016). A portion of the food can be prepared the day before. We decide who would handle what task and when it time clean up the second generation, always try to make the third generation do it. We then continue to cook and clean and reminisce of our past year. Sometimes we would bring up our childhood pranks and stories of family members that passed and present. On the day of Thanksgiving we finish cooking,

Sadie Wallace Coach Reynolds English II 24 October 2014 Hispanic Culture Vs American Culture What do you think is different between Latin culture and the United States culture? There have been many stereotypes about Latinos/Hispanics that have developed over the course of history.

My family has many traditions one of them is to make tamales on Christmas Eve so they are ready for Christmas Day. My family stays up on Christmas Eve and we stay up all night till the clock hits 12:00, that is when we start opening presents. Later on we go to sleep/take a nap and wake up so we can do El Nacimiento de Dios. El Nacimiento de Dios is when our family gathers around the setting of where Jesus was born and "we see his birth". We usually do a posada which is huge dinner with many types of Mexican foods like tamales, posole, rice, beans, etc. Each year my grandma, grandma, uncle, aunt, and some cousins come for Christmas from Mexico and we have a family gathering where we meet our family members in which we have not seen for a long

One of these is that on Thanksgiving everybody comes together to my parents’ house in New Jersey for a huge feast. On Christmas only my mother and the children (me and my brother) travel to Illinois to spend a week with my grandparents. On New Years Eve we all get together at my parents’ house in New Jersey and toast to the New Year with champagne and apple cider. During Labor Day weekend all of my family travels to South Jersey to my grandfathers’ condo. We usually spend all of our time on the beach and barbequing, except on Sunday when we go to church. After all, my grandfather is a minister. One of our biggest family traditions is going back to Puerto Rico. Every year my mother and I travel back to Puerto Rico for a portion of our summer vacation. Now that I am older I travel there more often and stay there much longer. My father never joins because he doesn’t like my mothers side of the father too much and he thinks that we when we speak Spanish we are all plotting against him. Of course that’s not true though. My bother doesn’t speak Spanish so he doesn’t like to go either. I guess that tradition is one that belongs solely to my mother and I.

Since my family lived so close together, we had many family traditions that remain important. We gather for nearly every holiday for a meal and routine. For Easter every year, we have an Easter egg hunt and dinner at my grandmother’s house. For Christmas Eve, we always went to my great-grandparents house and had dinner and exchanged gifts. For Christmas, we celebrated at home, and then went to my grandmother's for breakfast with our cousins. The importance of all of the holidays we celebrated was that no matter what was going on in our lives,

As a child, my family would celebrate every holiday with grandeur, especially Christmas. We have specific traditions and rituals that we carry out during the season, but the most important of our traditions is what we do on Christmas morning. Our rituals and traditions reflect our values as well as my own of family, unity, and tradition. The morning of the holiday my mother has always woken my brother and I, and then brought us to our dad so we could all walk down to the family room. As we gather in the family room around our tree and presents, my mom serves us each a piece of her Christmas casserole, saved for this special morning. Following our video-taped walk down to our presents, my brother, mother, father, and I open one gift from each other and the first thing in our stocking. After this ritual, my brother and I would go downstairs to our in-law suite where our grandmother lived, to wake up our Mimi and pull her upstairs so that we could finish opening presents and have hot chocolate with our entire family. One Christmas morning

I have spent approximately 5,735 hours sitting at a dinner table with my family. Some of those hours dragged by and some of them ran out in the blink of an eye. Many hours took place around a huge mahogany table that seemed to extend for miles, while others occurred around a tiny folding table, barely big enough to contain the food and conversations being passed above it. However, one of the things that has always stayed that same, no matter the table or the topic of discussion, was the people that sat around it. Family dinner is such a profound time of the day; a time when everyone can come together as one. Throughout all of these years and all of these dinner tables, I have come to learn that relationships are sacred.

The tradition began on Christmas day in 1994, when my great grandmother Doris Murray gave a simple housewarming gift to my mom and dad, as they had just moved in to their first house together. The gift was a cookbook she had purchased from a local church in which she was a frequent visitor to. Little did our family know that within this cookbook would be a recipe that evolved in to a tradition that would be made at all of our following family gatherings. Together, my mother and great grandmother cooked a lasagna that would be a part of the meal for Christmas supper, and almost every family function that followed. As my great grandmother was the oldest member of my father’s side of the family she was