Reviving a Family Tradition

I've written before about my mom's (and consequently my family's) obsession with all things Indian. One of the coolest ways this obsession has manifested is that for 20 years my parents hosted an Indian feast at our house on Christmas Eve for a group of our family and friends.

Sadly, about 5 years ago, my parents decided that the feast was too much work to continue and they stopped hosting it and we instead began spending Christmas Eve at Indian restaurants with immediate family only. While I'm perfectly happy with this arrangement, I was beyond thrilled when I received an invitation to a Christmas Indian feast held in our honour.

That's right my sister/MOH decided to bring back our old tradition as a pre-wedding celebration for Mr. Knitting and myself. Think wedding shower, minus pretty much everything that says shower. It was perfect.

Here's the fam:



The only way you'd know there was anything wedding related about the event was by looking at the hilarious little accessories my MOH bought for our drinks.



We had lots of amazing Indian food:





And some perogies:



And lots of wonderful guests:

My BMs and their studmuffins (that's what they call them, I swear!):



My gorgeous grandmother (ignore my goofy looking uncle):



Mama Knitting with Mr. K's parents:



Me and my amazing godmother:



I also used this opportunity to give my gifts to my MOH, BMs, and FGs. here's everything all wrapped under my parent's tree:





Here's an action shot of my lovely ladies opening their gifts:



Originally I had planned to get my MOH that same gift as my other ladies and then add on something extra, but after being completely overwhelmed by all the amazing things she did for my wedding I decided on a new gift. Here it is:



Once Long Ago is a fairy tale book my mother had as a little girl and she used to read stories from it to me and my sisters when we were kids. Her copy is really damaged now, but I managed to track down a copy of the book (NOT an easy thing to do). I was really happy with this gift because it's really sentimental and special, but also has a purpose!

All in all in was the perfect pre-wedding celebration that really made me so excited for the wedding. It was really wonderful to bring back a family tradition. It was really special because many of the people at the party were people that had attended the Indian dinners in the past, but there were also a few new guests like Mr. Knitting's family, some of who had never even tried Indian food.

Did you have a non-traditional pre-wedding celebration?