Create a family tradition. One of ours is an annual ladies luncheon.

Family traditions are important for various reasons but the main reason in my opnion is the memories that are created. We have a bunch of family traditions and I think they hold special meaning to everyone in our family. In this post I am going to talk about a family tradition that was started 14 years ago and how it has evolved. 

My mom and aunt started this event and it has grown to be one of my favorite things we do as a family. We have an annual Palm Sunday Ladies Luncheon. It is a lunch filled with the ladies in our family. I come from a very large Italian family. My mom has something like 50 first cousins. See I told you it was a big family. 

Here is how it started. My mom and aunt wanted to get their aunts together and out of the house after a long winter. Well they thought how about we set up a lunch on Palm Sunday. Then they thought how about we invite all of our cousins or cousins-in-laws to attend. 

Each year they pick a different restaurant and buy small favors for everyone who attends. Some years the favors have special meaning. One year it was a scrapbook style booklet with my great grandparents marriage certificate copied and a picture of the church they were married in along with the story of their courtship. Another year one of my moms cousins took a large undertaking of making a family cookbook with recipes from each family. It is a beautiful book I will cherish always. Everyone who attended loved it.

There are some rules to the event. 

You must be at least 16 years old
You must be related to us either by birth or marriage.
You will not receive a favor if you don't attend the luncheon. 
You need to RSVP in order to receive a favor. 
One invitation is sent to one representative from each family and it is their responsibility to let everyone know in their family. 

So why Palm Sunday? Well because it is a holiday that isn't filled with family get togethers or parties. However if you google when is Palm Sunday 2025 you will know the date of the luncheon. It makes it clear for everyone to be able to fit it in their schedules or not. 

We have had years where there were over 50 women attend and we have had years where 12 are there (those are some of my favorite years.) It is a chance for our busy family to come together and catch up. It is a time where the woman can spend together away from the kids and husbands. Everyone is so busy that getting together is harder and harder and this event maybe the only time we will be able to see each other all year. We laugh, we cry, we have a great time filled with memories, favorite family stories and good food. What more can you ask for??   

Every year I walk away with such an amazing sense of pride because I am a part of family filled with fantastic, strong, brilliant women.  

Have there been issues? YES. The rules have to be followed or there is trouble and hurt feelings. Example the age rule. Children are not allowed with one exception newborn babies. If a mother is breast feeding and can't be away from the baby it is understood. EVERY female in the family is invited. Even when some aunts, sisters, cousins, wives, mothers don't like their brothers, sons, male cousins wife or girlfriend it doesn't matter. She is still invited. That rule keeps feelings from being hurt. The rule about the favors is kept so that again feelings aren't hurt. You attend you get a favor, you don't attend you don't get a favor. It really is as simple as that. 

Will this tradition keep going? In a word. YES. Even if it is just me and my daughters this tradition will never stop. It will carry on, just as it has lasted for 14 years and counting. Every year I can't wait and look forward to the Palm Sunday Ladies Luncheon. 

It doesn't have to be a Palm Sunday luncheon but create a family tradition. Believe me it is worth it. My daughters are counting down the years until they are able to come. I look forward to my daughter-in-law attending it with us. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this and have an idea for a new family tradition. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Mrs. Fife

Easy Card Game: A great way to make memories with your kids and family. Solution to cabin fever.

Playing Cards Making Memories

Baby it's cold outside. This winter has been a tough one and shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. We have used quite the number of calamity days or snow days. The kids have been off of school and looking for something to do to entertain themselves. I thought this would be a good time to blog about a cheap, easy, fun way to keep the family occupied to cure a case of cabin fever. We love to play cards as a family. I think it is great way to bond with the kids and make memories. We laugh together, talk about anything and everything and the kids really love it. 

I told you this would be a cheap way to cure cabin fever it costs the price of a deck of cards. 

We like to play all kind of card games, Uno, Skip Bo, Bolgona (the kids friendly name for Bull Sh*t), Gin Rummy, Rummy (yes there is a difference), Go Fish. However there is a card game that is a family tradition. 

We call it Blitz. My great-grandparents played this at their house with my Grandmother and her siblings and all of their spouses. My grandparents played it with us on Christmas. Now my Mom plays it with me and my siblings, our spouses and kids.  My great-grandparents played for pennies and nickles. My grandparents played with quarters and now we play for dollars or nothing. Over the years the stakes of the game have changed but the rules of the game have stayed the same. 

Here are the rules to play Blitz. 

Blitz

You use a regular 52 card deck of cards. There needs to be at least 2 players. The more players the more fun you will have. Now here is the goal of the game to reach 31 points in the same suit. If you get 31 of the same suit you call out blitz. It doesn't happen very often but when it does it is really exciting. 

Aces are valued at 11 points

King, Queen, Jack are all 10 points each.

The rest of the deck is taken at its face value.

Each player should start off with 4 quarters or chips in front of them. This is a way of keeping track how many "lives" you have left in the game. 

Each player is dealt 3 cards. Don't show anyone else your cards. After each player has 3 cards the dealer then should lift the next card face up and next to the pile of the remaining deck. The person to the dealers left goes first and continue with the next person to the left of that player.  Remember to rotate dealers to the left with each hand dealt. 

The person going first needs to decide what suit they are going to collect. An example if you had this hand you would collect hearts.

If you had this hand you would collect spades even though there are 2 diamond cards. The reason is because the spades card is a higher value card than the combination of the 2 hearts cards. If the person before you tosses out an ace of diamonds you would change to collecting diamonds because you have a higher number than the 10 of spades. 

The person to the dealers left goes first and decides to take from the deck or the top card and then discards. The next player to that players left must decide to take from the deck or the last card discarded. You can only take the top card not one previously discarded by a player a few picks before. Example:

You could only us take the 2 not the 10 underneath it. 

If you pick up the card off of the pile you can not discard it. However if you pick up from the deck you can discard it. 

If you have 21 or more of the same suit you can KNOCK. This means that you actually knock on the table when it is your turn next. You have to knock before you take a card and once you knock you can NOT take a card. What happens then is everyone else around the table has one last turn to get their cards as high as possible before everyone turns their cards over and shares what they were collecting and how high their number is. If you knock when you get 21 if the game has gone around the table a few times you may get eliminated yourself because it could be the lowest number.  The person with the lowest number puts a quarter into the center. Once you loss all of your quarters you have 1 free ride. Meaning you can ride free and win the entire game as long as your not the one with the lowest number when someone knocks. You are eliminated from the game once you run out of quarters/life and you lost while riding free. 

What happens when someone calls BLITZ? Everyone but that person losses a quarter/life. When can you call Blitz? As soon you are dealt it or if you pick up a card that gives you Blitz. However if you get 31 after someone has knocked you can't call Blitz nor will everyone lose a life. 

The last person who has a quarter or hasn't lost while riding free is the winner. 

The more people you have the longer the game will go on. 

I promise you will laugh and have a great time with your family. 

Your kids will remember this much more than playing a video game while you are off doing something else. 

Our kids love playing cards with us. 

I hope you have a great time playing with your kids. I hope this is something you can do as a family to stay busy during those cold days. I also hope your family has as much as mine does playing this game, it is family tradition that has brought us so many great memories.

What card games do you play as a family?  

Thanks for stopping by.

Mrs. Fife