Most families who migrated to the U.S. brought not only with them their origin but tradition.
Italian's often had a huge Sunday dinner.
While it centered around immediate family your aunts, uncles, cousins, friends even friends of friends
were welcomed (Sound familiar?).
Sunday dinner was EVERY Sunday and most family showed every time.
FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!
There were far too many people to fit into a kitchen or dining room. Some ate in the living room watching TV and if your kitchen was like mine there was a portable TV in there too & it was often on amidst "thirty five"shouting, yelling, talking, laughing LOUDLY at the same time...and back in the day SMOKING...at the table.
TRADITION!
You think this is the way it always will be. Some come. Some go. But TRADITION is always there.
The reality is traditions die...like family.
After my mother at 73 years old died in 1988 our family Sunday dinner traditions also died. Everyone went their own way.
Her sister, my Aunt Clara like my mother had Sunday Dinners too. She lived into her mid 90's. The upswing to longevity is life itself however you also outlive your peers and with them TRADITION.
Family moves on. The table once as crowded with food as the "crowd," inside was often empty. Maybe a small meal for one or two maybe a handful but it was nowhere near the TRADITION you recalled. Eventually, everyone stopped coming and the TRADITION dies.
I've tried to regain some of the TRADITION but like those before me it didn't last, in fact it failed. Most don't see the value, if not the need for family traditions. There's often a reason they can't make it but they're often excuses.
Years ago someone would carry on a tradition. Today, it's not important. Maybe they're right.
Who cares? What's the big deal? It doesn't matter.
When you lose TRADITION you lose not only what is your family's history but you lose the identity of your family's ancestry if not family itself.
My kids now adults don't seem to care about carrying on tradition. My grand kids are far removed from what once was. They were born decades after my mother died & years after my aunt passed away.
I hope someday they too can enjoy a TRADITION maybe one started in their home as children or one they create as adults because TRADITION is important.
MANGIA!
