Families are Unique

I do not know much about my family, and from what I do know about it, there does not seem to be anything that interesting. A little while ago, I learned that my grandfather’s great great great grandmother is a full blood Passamaquoddy Indian. This can be kind of cool to think about, and this means that one of my ancestors is originally from this country and even this state. It is neat to realize that everything that I have learned about the Passamaquoddy Indians back in middle school is the same sort of stuff that one of my ancestors have gone through. While learning about this, I also realized that this meant that my grandfather’s great great great grandmother also had a lot of bad experiences. An example of this being lost land. Yes, the Passamaquoddy tribe still owns land today, over 200.000 acres. However, they used to have much more obviously, and lost a lot of it. It is kind of sad to think about it, and how all of those people were affected by it. Even though this has not directly impacted my life, knowing that one of my family’s ancestors was, and how it affected her life and everyone else’s who were around her.
My family also has small traditions that we have done for as long as I can remember, especially around the holidays. Christmas time if a special time for everyone, including my family, every year such as my family all getting together and making Christmas cookies and gingerbread houses. Another tradition that started when was I was very young, is that my sister and I would get an early present on Christmas Eve morning when ‘Santa’ would take our Christmas stockings. Another Christmas time tradition in my family is that we always get new ornaments for each other to put on the tree. These are just some of the small traditions in my family that was started since I had been born.
Another thing that is in my family is a joke about how clumsy my sister is and how she is not always aware of everything. To us, it is insane as to how much she always fall, trips and drops stuff. Sometimes it seems like she can not go three steps without something happening. We always tease her and joke with her about it and how often she does it. One of the funniest stories in my opinion about her self awareness is when we went to Val’s Drive In in Lewiston. Outback, they have batting cages, so us and some friends decided to go try it out. When we got there, my sister decided to go in to see how well she could do. What she did not know, is that you are not supposed to stand directly in front of the plate when you are trying to hit the ball. None of us realized where she was standing until it was too late. The machine started up and all of a sudden a baseball came flying out, hitting her directly in the stomach. All of us (except for her of course) started laughing so hard that tears started coming out. She immediately bent over in pain and slowly walked out, moaning in pain. The ball left a giant red mark that stayed around for the rest of the day. Another example of her being clumsy is when she somehow managed to fall off of a flat surface by just sitting there. And this did not happen just once, but twice! The first time, we were outside somewhere, sitting on a picnic table. No one is sure how, but she somehow fell. Just randomly fell. She wasn’t leaning or moving or anything, she just fell off of a bench by doing nothing. The second time this happened was sometime later, but in our house this time. She was eating breakfast, when all of a sudden there was a thud, and she was on the floor. It is unclear as to how she manages to do this, but our family finds it hysterical. Even though this isn’t exactly a joke or family history, it seems to be becoming a very common tradition at this point. But our family enjoys joking about how my sister isn’t the most careful person.
Although I am not too affected by these events and traditions, they are still interesting and fun to look upon. I am glad that we have these small traditions and jokes in our family. When families have their own little traditions such as these, it gives them more meaning and the ability to be more unique.

Photo on Foter.com