The beginning of a new year can be a busy time for anyone, but we find ourselves particularly busy due to the traffic jam of first-of-the-year holidays we celebrate in our family. Mercifully, Chinese New Year begins in February this year, so we find ourselves celebrating “only” Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Haitian Independence Day in one week’s time. Most Christian Ethiopians observe an orthodox Christmas, so we’ll have that to throw into the mix when our new child arrives next year. For now, though, we’ll enjoy the slower pace of just three major holidays in a week!

Choosing to celebrate the major holidays of our children’s birth cultures is very important to us for many reasons. Obviously, it’s critical for internationally and transracially adopted children to be familiar with the foods, customs and holidays associated with the cultures from which they originate, but we also find that celebrating these holidays seems to knit our family closer together and give our birthchildren an even greater appreciation for their adopted siblings. We also discovered that it’s a nice way to feel closer to a child or children we’re waiting for, before the adoption has taken place. We had our first Haitian Independence Day/New Year meal one year ago today, and I remember feeling a sense of satisfaction that I was making the very same food that millions (I hope) of Haitians would be eating that day. I wondered if our children were given any sort of special meal at the orphanage, but I took comfort in knowing that if not, we were eating beans and rice just like they were.

Our family eats foods from all over the world and I love that our children have such global palates. (Just ask my mom, who commented after watching our kids while we were on an adoption trip that our cupboards were stocked with a bunch of stuff she didn't even recognize or know how to use!) Even for folks like me who live in small towns, preparing authentic dishes has gotten easier thanks to the Internet. You can order just about anything you could possibly need! So even if you’re not an adoptive parent of Haitian children or have no other connection to Haiti, I hope you’ll take a day sometime this month to prepare the same meal my family ate today. If nothing else, it would make a great Family Home Evening and broaden your family’s culinary horizons.

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