Tonight is Robert Burns’ birthday. Also known as Robert Burns dinner night. Because of this, I had thought I would focus on Scotland for a month of learning for my family. But when I went to do some findings on things we could do around Scottish culture, there was only Robert Burns dinner for the month of January for us to do in our area. While I would love to attend one of these dinners one day, I do not think my children could possibly understand the goings on, let alone why the man is renowned amoungst his kinsmen.
I did, however, find some Scottish events in February. So I shifted the plans of Scottish learning to February. And then decided to do French culture for the month of January. If you read my previous post you would remember I had tried to find events, feast days, or remembrances of countries within the month. St Hilary, a french man, has a feast day on January 8th. Other than January 6th, little Christmas as I grew up calling it, this was the next feast day that I found.
The night of my realization I decided to shift to France, we had an American version of French cuisine for dinner. Good Ol’ French Dip sandwiches. I found that I did not have an Au Jus package in my house, so I made the sauce from scratch. And as much as the name French is in the title of the dish, I know that the sandwich itself is not french in nature. In fact, I have enjoyed a French Dip sandwich a few times at Philippe’s in Los Angeles and have heard the story that this little dinner brought the sandwich to the area. Even in my weak attempt, I merely brought our own area culture to my table.
I truly did want to do this idea of working to teach my children of other cultures. However, I quickly discovered that I do not think I would have the buy in. I mean, I five mile hike can be too much for my son, let alone an attempt to learn a whole culture in a month.
But…I have not given up. This next month of February, we have a few Scottish events. My family is not Scottish, in fact I am Irish through my very Irish father, and a big mix through my mother. And I am married to a man with a German name, but with a lot of Irish and English ancestry. Besides some basics of Gaelic I learned as a child, I am fluent in the language. But I have come to discover that there are many similarities between the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages.
My plan moving forward is to find a way to do some learning at least one weekend a month. I figure we could go to the event. And I have a friend who sings with the Scottish fiddlers, so maybe add in a practice oft he group to our list. I am not planning on feeding my children Haggis, I mean, they ate their chicken tonight with Ranch dressing, I don’t know how to mask the taste of organ meat. But I think we could focus on some of the vegetables that weekend.
I will attempt to fill you in on our progress this next month.
But just be aware that I become a mother of a teenager in two weeks. So I may be waving a white flag instead.
