The 4th of July

It's that time of year.

For most of my life I've wrestled with determining my favorite holiday: Christmas or the 4th of July. Both shared similar qualities in that lots of people were brought together, the crowd was usually quite loud and rowdy and the fun went on for a long time.

About 6 years ago our traditional Christmas at my uncle Bill's came to a close. At least I think it was 6 years ago as I'm sure my children really didn't experience an uncle Billy's house X-mas. They were replaced by a sporadicly thrown summer event called "Family Fun". I think "Family Fun" lasted about 3 non-consecutive years. The annual 4th of July party's ended 4 years ago.

So now we are making our own new traditions. For the past 3 years Mena and I have marched in the Boombox parade in Willimantic. We have a "Vote for Mena" float. The first year we were actually photographed by the AP and featured in USA Today, the Boston Globe and The Hartford Courant (online edition). It's fun and it's now "what we do".

That's a lot of how it goes now, refining, redefining and creating traditions.

Everything changes, but it still looks kind of familiar.


{this post will be revised as I know I have more I want to add}