Why Semana Santa Was More Than Spring Break in My Household

Why Semana Santa Was More Than Spring Break in My Household

While most kids were on Spring Break enjoying a few days off from school, visiting their grandparents, or going somewhere warm, for me, in the Dominican Republic, it was about more than that. We didn't really have "Spring Break" per se, we had "Semana Santa," that week that starts on Palm Sunday and ends on Easter Sunday. For my parents, it was very important to raise me and my siblings in the Catholic faith, and Semana Santa was the most important week of the year for that. It was the week when we celebrated Jesus's passion, death, and resurrection, and we had certain traditions to commemorate it.

When we were younger and school actually gave us the whole week off, my parents would pack up our stuff and we'd leave Santo Domingo, where we lived, to a small house on a hill 30 minutes away from the city that my dad had built before he was with my mother. The house had a pool and a big backyard. That, along with my mom's CD collection and an old TV with no cable and only five local channels, was enough for us to spend the week. No internet, no smartphones, just real human connection.

While most kids were on Spring Break enjoying a few days off from school, visiting their grandparents, or going somewhere warm, for me, in the Dominican Republic, it was about more than that. We didn't really have "Spring Break" per se, we had "Semana Santa," that week that starts on Palm Sunday and ends on Easter Sunday. For my parents, it was very important to raise me and my siblings in the Catholic faith, and Semana Santa was the most important week of the year for that. It was the week when we celebrated Jesus's passion, death, and resurrection, and we had certain traditions to commemorate it.

When we were younger and school actually gave us the whole week off, my parents would pack up our stuff and we'd leave Santo Domingo, where we lived, to a small house on a hill 30 minutes away from the city that my dad had built before he was with my mother. The house had a pool and a big backyard. That, along with my mom's CD collection and an old TV with no cable and only five local channels, was enough for us to spend the week. No internet, no smartphones, just real human connection.

While this might not seem very interesting for many, this one week a year became such an important tradition for us growing up. I don't consider myself to be super religious, but this was much more than that. It was a way for my parents to connect with us, to form a bond that is still strong to this day, to teach us the importance of having customs, to celebrate who we are and what we believe in, to take a moment and reflect on what we do, how we treat people, how we can be better and continue to grow. This was a way for them to show us that the family would always have our backs and support us, and that it would always be a safe space.

I remember when I was younger wanting to get out of spending Semana Santa so "secluded" and go to other places where my friends would be vacationing. But my parents didn't compromise — at least not during our most formative years. And now, although we all live in different parts of the world, we remain more united than ever. I cherish those moments we spent just the five of us, and while my parents stayed in the Dominican Republic, with me in the US, my sister in the UK, and my brother in Canada, we make it a point to have constant communication and be as present in each other's lives as we can. We have to get together, all of us, at least once a year, and holidays are nonnegotiable; and although we've become individuals who are very different, we still feel very much like a unit.

The way I perceive these religious celebrations and what I think about them might have changed now, but the feelings they evoke remain the same. Sometimes you might not be totally aligned with certain traditions, but you still take part in them because they remind you of home, they make you feel like you belong, and they bring back happy memories of simpler times.