CHERISHING FAMILY!
Every year, my whole family takes some time out to go on a holiday together. When I say “whole” family, I mean the ones who can make it at the time. Along with my gorgeous husband and two precious children, my “whole family” comprises of Mum, my uncle and aunt, brothers and sisters with partners, and nieces and nephews (the mathematical sum of which would have taken me way too long to work out!) Suffice to say, there were quite a few mouths to feed and an abundance of FUN to be had! You may be thinking, “what a big family!” Yes, I am extremely blessed and will never have to worry about being alone in the world! So the only math I really need to concern myself with is counting my blessings!
The family holiday idea started soon after my Dad passed away in the year 2000. This marked the end of a beautiful life, but the beginning of a very special family tradition in memory of a very special man. It was such a huge loss for all of us to have to let go of Dad and we didn’t know how we were going to deal with the overwhelming grief. One of my brothers-in-law came up with a fantastic idea for us to take a family holiday together. This family holiday was to bring our heart-broken Mum a touch of joy, and in helping us to honour our beautiful Dad’s memory, it became instrumental in healing our indescribable grief. Little did we know that 10 years later, the tradition would still be alive!
Our first year at Vacy was in September 2001, and every year at the same time, we have a running booking with the lovely owners of Banjos Bushland Retreat. The only year we didn’t go was in 2009 when my sister and I were having cancer treatment and were too sick – the rest of the family said it wouldn’t be the same without us, so they all cancelled for that year. I guess that’s why it made Vacy all the more special this year.
Banjos is comprised of three luxury 5 star lodges, games room and tennis court, and is set on 20 acres of private magical bushland. This 20 acres is set high on the mountaintop of a 1,000 acre reserve in a town called Vacy, about two hours from Sydney in the beautiful Hunter Valley.
To give you an idea of this enchanting setting, here is an aerial photograph from the Banjos website:
Of course, with this amount of people in attendance, there is a lot of organisation that needs to happen in order to make the holiday a success. Most of us arrive on the Thursday, with dribs and drabs arriving over the following days. There are so many activities to squeeze into the four days – besides eating, there’s tennis, table tennis, chess and pool to be played. Then after more eating, there’s bushwalking and yoga to be done. After a bit more eating, we then have to squeeze in a dip in the spa and sweat it out in the sauna. Before long, we’re hugging, kissing and embracing, as though it were for dear life, when it is time to leave again on the Sunday, with only the promise of next year to cheer us up.
These are always some of the best four days in my whole year. But the “Vacy” holiday experience doesn’t just begin on the Thursday. The excitement of tradition actually begins at home days and weeks before. First, we need to calculate, allocate, communicate and subjugate the financial barriers of such an event. Nothing can stop us from getting to Vacy, so we all share the financial burden. Once that’s done and dusted, I send everyone a list of foods they need to bring. It only took us 10 years to realise that we were taking too much food, as we finally got sick of carting it all back home with us.
So since I’m the “bossy one” (apparently!!), it was my job to email everyone the “Vacy Shopping List” and to organise the menu for each meal. Even after such detailed planning, we still had too much food. We’ll reduce it again next year, but not too much because it’s become part of the “Vacy” experience to come back home having put on a few extra kilos around the tummy!
Suffice to say, even though it takes days to prepare and pack for Vacy, we all know that it’s going to be worth it. “Vacy” is not just a holiday location to us, it’s an endearing name for the embodiment and very essence of “family”.
This year I had all good intentions of making cupcakes for everyone. How could I not, when everyone had been so loyally following my blog? So at the beginning of our preparation week I started to bake – but how was I going to make so many cupcakes? I’m not a professional baker, how was I going to keep them fresh, I only have recipes for 12 cupcakes at a time….so many questions.
So to add to the messy business of packing groceries and clothes for Vacy, I decided to attempt to add cupcakes to my list:
A few hours later, and the cupcakes were looking pretty good:
It was Tuesday and we were leaving on Thursday morning. It had already taken hours and I’d only made 12! I still had shopping and packing to do….and too many more cupcakes to make! Before long, I came to the conclusion that I had run out of time. Instead of continuing the madness, I reluctantly gave up. I ended up sharing a few of the 12 cupcakes with one of my special neighbours and my family ate the rest (which we were all pleased about, as they tasted much better than my previous batch!) Oh well, I knew my family would forgive me for ditching the Vacy cupcake idea….after all, they love me for who I am, not for my cupcakes!!
Thursday soon came and we were on our way:
Once we hit the town of Vacy, you could feel the excitement in the confined space of the car. We were all just itching to arrive (and to get out of the car!) We had come to consider Vacy our second home in some respects.
“Vacy, we’re home!!!” I almost yelled:
Our friends were waiting for us:
Waiting so patiently:
Four days of family, feasts and fun:
We couldn’t forget to give thanks before dinner. After all, we are truly blessed!
And when I arrived back home, I saw a simple white carving on my window-sill.
“FAMILY – Cherish your family”……
“Vacy” may be over for another year,
but the blessing of “family” is with me every day of the year:
Creating beautifully decorated cupcakes takes time.
Shopping for ingredients, preparing, mixing, baking, intricately hand decorating – it all takes time. To speed up the process I could buy ready-to-mix cupcakes, but you never know exactly what’s in those packet mixes. Home baked ones are always better.
I had started out with the noble aspiration of creating beautifully decorated cupcakes for “Vacy”, which would require an ample amount of time! Would it matter if I ran out of time? Would it matter if I didn’t get to feed my family “Vacy” cupcakes?
One of the things I’ve become much better at over my recent healing journey is organising and prioritising my time. I didn’t end up having enough time for “Vacy” cupcakes. But it didn’t matter at all. What mattered was the quality time spent in the “Vacy” experience itself – as a family, we made time for each other. We put aside work, financial constraints, the hustle and bustle of modern life and we made a commitment to the “Vacy” tradition.
Cherishing “family” is what matters! Eating together, playing together, laughing and singing together, dancing together, talking together, sharing our talents……this is what matters!
When it comes to cupcakes, there is a choice to be made – do we buy them or expend the time and energy to make our own quality cupcakes? In life, we also have a choice to make – do we spend our precious time on quality activities or do we waste it on the unimportant frivolities of life? Or on things that don’t really matter?
Time is a priceless commodity – we can’t buy it, we can’t trade it, we can’t steal it, we can’t change it and we can’t make more of it. The most wonderful thing about time however, is that although we can’t control time itself, we can control how we use it.
I choose not to be wasteful with my time.
We can choose to spend our precious time wisely!
