Fly with Me: family. traditions

i feel so blessed to be a part of so many cultures and traditions. so here is a little about me that you may or may not know. my father is scot-irish & swedish, my mother is hispanic: her mothers family is from mexico and her father's is from spain and her fathers grandfather was german.
so yes you got it i'm a mutt. hee-hee

my husband's father is greek, his mother is palestinian. (my mother-in-law says she had to get away from all the fighting in Jerusalem because the christian palestinians are persecuted by both the jews and muslims. so now she is free to be her, and LOVE jesus all she wants) his parents both came to the U.S. (separately) in the early 70's met in las vegas, where they were both living & working and were married two weeks later.

my point is in our home we have A LOT of traditions from all over the spectrum. did you know that in the orthodox church most every thing is done in 3's this is done to represent:

the father

the son

the holy spirit

when my boys were baptized the were fully submerged into water 3 times. needless to say they were NOT happy babies. but when it was over they were wearing & still wear the armor of GOD.

*in the Orthodox Church we do not baptize babies so that they automatically believe, we baptize them so that the WILL believe.

over the weekend my husband and i had the extreme pleasure of being the GODPARENTS to a little ~~boy~~ infant named RONAN he is 2 months old.
here's some background on him... his father is irish and his mother is romanian.

when you are baptized in the orthodox church, before you are "dunked" in the water you are anointed from head to toe in holy oil: olive oil that has been blessed. after baptism you do not bathe whom ever was baptized for 3 days.

* i should know why but i don't. i was 19 when my "baby" oldest was baptized and i didn't ask a lot of questions. i settled for just beacuse. i am going to find out why.

when Ronan's 3 days were over we were invited to give him his first bath. +here is where the tradition part comes in. It is Romanian tradition to put feathers, leaves, coins, rose petals, and sugar in the bath water. here's what each represents

feathers: so he will be light as a feather & healthy all of his life.

leaves: *i can't remember why but, i'm on it once mama gets back to me i will plug it in* SORRY
so, the leaves are so he will always be clean. ;-)

coins: so that he will never go without.

rose petals: so he will always smell good.

sugar: so that he will always be sweet.