Kielbasa and Eggs
Several years ago, I sliced a few of Baczynsky’s home-made kielbasas, fried them, and scrambled them into eggs as part of Christmas morning breakfast. This was something I’d never tried before and which, by most reports, was fairly successful.
Early the following October, my son, who was 7 at the time, came running up to me excitedly and asked “Dad! Dad! Dad! Are we going to have kielbasa and eggs for Christmas breakfast?”
“I don’t know, Leo,” I said. “that’s almost three months away.”
“But Dad! Dad! Dad! We have to. It’s a tradition!”
The importance of repeated, ritualized experiences, no matter how profound or (apparently) simple they are, has never been made so clear to me. And even though we (m’Fam) don’t have much in the way of externally-defined traditions, we’ve managed, without consciously trying, to create our own set of rituals which we perform annually, and, in an unspoken way, look forward to the rest of the year.
We prepare, gather, do our few simple gestures, comment on the traditions, recollect, laugh at ourselves, and get to know each other just a little more deeply, having noticed that we’re all a year older than the last time we did it.
Afterward, I find the resulting sense of well-being, fleeting though it be, is remarkable.
The very best in health and happiness to you and your loved ones this holiday season and in the New Year.
