The first weekend in February each year is notoriously the weekend of the big game. Here in the US it's the Super Bowl. *cue the roaring cheers of the crowd.
For football fans alike it's the showdown they have been religiously watching for months, rooting for, booing for and planning a party for.
Department and Appliance stores sales are announced weeks in advance to entice buyers to purchase a new TV for better viewing, recipes clog up supermarket websites and blog posts about the best snacks and football themed finger foods to serve to your guests or, this year, just you and your family. Furniture stores have come up with promotions telling you that your old couch and tables just won't do for the "big game"..... really all I see in each ad is the need for a better place to fall asleep on that Sunday night when the game hits its midpoint too darn close to my bedtime. I still haven't figured out why they chose to play late on a Sunday, a work night, a school night for something that is supposed to garner so much attention.
But I digress.
This weekend represents something very different for my family and I.
It's our House-aversary weekend. Yay!
This very weekend just a short 4 years ago was when we finished living our lives in the Great Lakes state of Michigan and moved south to sunny North Carolina.
What prompted the move is a longer story, which you can read about in my book when it's published, and the twists and turns our lives have taken since that move, also in my upcoming book, have not swayed us from celebrating that weekend move every year since.
As a ritual we rise, dress and head over to the breakfast place that sits next to the hotel where we stayed when we first arrived.
We spent several nights at the hotel between the closing of the old house and getting the keys to the new. It became our command center and starting point for each day of our new adventure. Our breakfast joint became the table we talked over the plans and places we would go each of these new days before the moving truck arrived to reunite us with our belongings.
The kids had one objective each day -ice cream shops for after dinner. Peter and I were looking more at the neighborhood around our new house, where the school was located, the market, the parks, how far the ocean was and how soon we could visit it.
Since that first weekend we've established ourselves into our new community. We've made new friends, found new favorite places to go and still have an ever growing list of places to be seen.
And as the seasons change and pass, the house is still transforming into a home, the kids are still growing, old interests fade, new ones arrive, but our constant standing date on Super Bowl weekend is the meal at "our" breakfast joint for our House-aversary celebration.
The kids always order some form of waffles or pancakes loaded with fruit and whipped cream and we always insist on at least one egg to add a bit of protein to the dessert laden meal. That has stayed the same. But what has changed is the conversation. Instead of planning a list of places to see we now plan maybe one place to check out with a casual meandering drive to that some place new. We now talk about what's happened within the past year and all the memories of our first arrival. How we remember the feelings of the places we now frequent when they were first looked at with fresh eyes. I love hearing my kids recollection.
This year, given our current pandemic, it places us squarely at home to celebrate our house-aversary. I've already ordered the appropriate groceries to recreate a memorable and kid pleasing meal that we will probably eat gathered around our kitchen table still in our pajamas. And I'm not a bit disappointed. Extra messy dishes aside, I look forward to the retelling of memories that will be shared and new ideas that will be voiced for places or events they want to add to our to-do list. For all of the fun or silly traditions we have made as a family this is definitely one that I cherish and continue to look forward to each year.
.....and then a little bit later we'll watch some football.
* what a difference a week can make*
