Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day. Call it what you may, it’s celebrated worldwide by Christians and pagans alike, those who know why and those who don’t!
Malia goes to college in Essex and sometimes her classmates live up to their reputation, enough to make us laugh!
“You don’t have pancake day in America do you?” she was asked today.
Are you kidding me? Memories of her church EYC’s annual event that she and her siblings participated in year after year, after year, come flooding back. Bacon, sausage, pancakes with maple syrup, all cooked up for the crowds that packed the parish hall at dinner time. A lucrative fund raiser for their mission trip later in the summer.
In Leigh there is a large event this evening where pancakes are being served at someone’s house.
I tell her we eat them with lemon and sugar here, and she says they also talked about cream cheese and strawberry jam and nutella…mmmm.
“Should I buy some maple syrup?” she muses out loud…then,
“Everyone is eating dinner first before going…isn’t that odd?”
“What?” I say, “pancakes are dinner!”
“That’s what I said!” her friends consider her a funny American.
When she brought up the fact that she was going to be late for college the following morning because she was going to mass they asked her,
“Why?”
“For ashes,” she explained.
“Why are you getting ashes? Do you go to church and get ashes every Wednesday?” they wondered.
So she talked about the beginning of Lent and the six weeks leading up to the passion and death of Jesus.
One of the girls said,
“I’m not Jewish so I don’t do Lent!”
My daughter persevered trying to find common ground among these English friends who claim affiliation to the Church of England, which is Christian after all!
“After Lent and Holy Week,” she explained, “comes Jesus’ resurrection,” she got blank looks, “on Easter Sunday,” she finished.
“Oh,” they chorused, “we know Easter, chocolate filled eggs. Do you do that in America?”
Many precious witnessing moments to be had here!
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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