Weblong 3

I think that the best way to describe myself and my family to the class would be in looking at some of my family traditions. I've found that most of them revolve around holidays, usually religious ones or ones celebrating my father's Macedonian heritage.  My mother was baptized and raised catholic, attending catholic schools and mass her whole life, while my father is Eastern Orthodox and spent his school years in a non-religious public school and most of his summers back in his parents village in Macedonia and traveling visiting relatives in Eastern Europe.  Since my parents couldn't exactly decide on a religious way to raise my sister and I, she was baptized into my father's Eastern Orthodox church and I was baptized Catholic, however we both attended the same Catholic schools throughout high school and sort of alternated churches, usually attending Catholic mass with our mother but all church and related Macedonian functions with my father and grandparents.   The two faiths are similar and therefore share many of the same holidays.  Every year we go to midnight mass at the Catholic church and then celebrate Christmas Day openning gifts, eating, and watching christams movies with most of our extended family on both sides, that is everyone that lives nearby.  The other main holiday we celebrate is Easter, which for our family comes twice a year:)  Easter never really has a set date but the Eastern Orthodox church generally celebrates Easter about 2-4 weeks after the Catholic church.  Therefore our family celebrates Catholic Easter at church and then has brunch with my mothers family.  Then a few weeks later we go to the Eastern Orthodox church for Easter again and spend the day with my grandmother and aunts making traditional Macedonian dishes for Easter dinner.  Other non-religious traditions our family has are a traditional Macedonian pita on New Years' Day, where one piece contains a quarter and whoever finds this quarter will have luck on their side throughout the year.  The only other family tradition I can really think of is the yearly Macedonian Ball.  It is put on by my father's church St. Nicholas, where majority of the population is of Macedonian or Greek descent. The evening basically consists of sharing a meal of some traditional dishes and then a band, consisting mostly of my extended family members, will play music from the old country and everyone will join in performing the required dances.  Throughout the years it is probably my favorite of our family traditions.  It is always fun seeing cousins who sometimes come from as far as New York and Florida once a year and a great way to keep the younger generations tied to their heritage in an interesting way.