“Hey ma, what’s for dinner?” “Memom’s.” “Oh, right, it’s Thursday. Well, we can’t stay to long. I have homework to do, as usual.”
Thursday nights, dinner at my grandmother’s house with my dad’s side of the family, a once sacred tradition, which now had become an impasse to my daily routine: go home, eat dinner, do my homework, watch TV and then go to bed. I used to get excited to go to Memom’s and converse with cousins, aunts and uncles, and play cards, but now it was dinner to me, just dinner.
We arrived and sat at the table, ate pretzels and waited for dinner. The conversations quickly picked up and they soon amounted to be very interesting. We talked about my sister’s whacky dating experiences and mused over our past family experiences. Memom had made some disgusting cheese balls again, which she had failed at preparing properly this time and the last time. Whenever she left the table to attend something, my cousin would warn the table, “Don’t eat the cheese balls, they’re terrible!” From then on, we had all been secretly making fun of the nasty cheese balls and I had to let out a laugh when my younger cousin looked up at Memom and said, “I HATE these!”
I realized that it is really nice to be able to get together with family every week, especially since not many other people are fortunate enough to have large, “Italian sized” families that they can get together with. After eating dinner, I was asked to join a game of cards. “Nah,” I said. After all, I still had homework to do. Shortly after, I noticed the cries of joy escalating around the card game. “Hey watcha playin’,” I said. “Twenty one why, you wanna join?” I joined the game, but I turned to my mom and told her we should leave in 15 minutes, since I had an English essay to write. I found myself enjoying it a lot; I had not played cards in a while. 15 minutes later, I asked my mom for five more minutes, then five more minutes…
I believe that family and traditions are important. Every time I return to Memom’s I forget the good times that are had there and I valued homework over them. Homework is important, yes, but times that are shared with family last forever, while homework lasts the night. Thursday nights at Memom’s are a lot of fun. We share many experiences together, both happy and sad. I believe that these experiences are important and that this is one tradition that ought to be continued from generation to generation.