A Mother's Legacy

L.M. Lion and I were watching West Wing (thank you Bravo syndication) the other week and they were talking about the President's legacy. What would his legacy be? How would people remember his time as president.

Of course it went into my brain and I chewed on it and worked it around and I started to wonder. Political officials and celebrities and "big" people aren't the only ones with legacies. Parents definitely have a legacy - a pretty big one if you ask me. But you don't have to have children to have a legacy. Normal people (because parenting is NOT normal - we've established that here at Zoo Suburbia) have a legacy too. I of course was wondering what my legacy would be. I mean, I'm not much more than a mom. Yeah, yeah. Wife, daughter, sister, friend. But my main title in life and the name I go by most often is Mom.

I know what my mother's legacy (so far) is. My mother gave me the gift of cooking. One of my first memories of our "new" house - the house I grew up in - was pulling a chair up to the counter and helping to make a birthday cake. Cooking is so much a part of me now that I have a whole shelf on the bookcase dedicated to cookbooks, the most important one being a copy of the one my mother used to teach me to cook.

My mother also took on the painful task of teaching me how to sew. I say painful because I was not the most patient of students, would get frustrated easily and probably left more porjects unfinished in her sewing cabinet than I actually finished. But now I have a skill that allows me to make my own dresses, skirts, gauchos, capris and who knows what for the kids. Advanced skills? No but enough to make my children happy.

Probably the biggest legacy my mother has given me is how to pray. There is a generally held consensus in our family is if Mom is praying, get out of the way. Something is going to happen. And I try. I try to pray sincerely and powerfully like my mother.

So now I am setting out on my own parenting journey trying to leave a legacy of my own. I will never know what my legacy is but I certainly hope that I can pass at least the lessons that my mother passed to me. After all, who has a more powerful legacy than a mother?

Join us in Korea!

You all remember my friend Nut, right? Well guess what she's back! This time to share Christmas in Korea. She and her family just recently got home (as in this past year) from a 4 year (sorry Nut it felt a lot longer but it was only 4, right?) term as missionaries on the Korean island of Jeju. I know she gets "homesick" fo rthe island often but being the trooper she is she put together a little peek at Christmas in Korea for us!

South Korea is a Buddhist and Shamanist country. Because of this, Christmas, in the past has held no great meaning for them. It was and in many cases, still is, just another day in the lives of most Koreans. In the past 100 years Christianity has spread throughout South Korea which brought with it, a small Christmas celebration. There is no large present exchange or tons of parties. You won't see Santa on every street corner or nativities placed throughout the town. However, on Christmas Day you will see that all the Christian Churches are open for a special worship services. They usually meet for an early morning prayer time (at about 5 am). Then they come back together for a worship service at 10. They break for lunch and fellowship and continue with a second worship service around 2 pm.

Every year that we were there, we did see more and more in the lines of Christmas decorations. Stores might have a small Christmas Tree or Snowman in the window. The International Wal-mart actually had fake Christmas Trees for sale. The town center will often decorate the trees with lights now. However, they still don't pause to celebrate on Christmas day.

If you wait a month or so, Koreans celebrate one of their two largest holidays of the year. Seol-ral or the Korean Lunar New Year (more commonly known as Chinese New Year) is a 3 day celebration. Koreans will travel to their home town where the entire family will meet for a celebration!

On the first day of celebration the Koreans will all dress in their tradition hanboks. They then perform a ceremony honoring their ancestors. After the ceremony at home, the entire family will drive to the grave site of their ancestors and perform a public ceremony honoring them. They then have a picnic at the grave. The traditional food eaten is dok-guk. It is a rice-cake soup that is absolutely delicious. They will leave soup, rice, and wine at the grave for the ancestors as they leave.

Children will bow to their elders as a sign of respect and in return they are given white envelopes filled with money. The adults often exchange gifts of well-being. The gifts they exchange are much more practical than the ones we exchange. They will give gift baskets of fruits and vegetables. It is common to see gifts boxes of spam, dove bar soap, socks, handkerchiefs, tissue, juice boxes, and other items used on a daily basis. Families will often spend the days playing tradition games such as yut and nol-twigi or go flying kites.

Seol-ral actually begins on Jan. 29 and continues through the first day of the new month. It is a time of the year that families look forward to all year long, much like we do for Christmas

Peanut!

And now I have a craving to go fly a kite myself! Especially with Mary Poppins playing in the background! Thank you again Nut for rescuing me from bloggy boredom.

For those of you playing along, I do believe our next stop is Japan (possibly this evening) and then to Australia tomorrow.