Considering that Labor Day started the week, I am sure many of you partook in holiday festivities of one kind or another. If it was not a picnic or a barbecue, maybe you just used your long weekend to enjoy the beautiful weather and the company of your friends or family.

In an attempt to stay true to old traditions, I went to our annual family reunion. My maternal grandmother's side of the family is quite extensive and most of them live south of here, but every year since I was born they get together on Labor Day weekend. As the crowd gets older and our lives all seem to get more and more complicated, the number lessens.

This year it was even more important that we make the effort to drive down there so that my family could see my mom's cousin who has advanced cancer. And even though it was still nice, it just seems so much different now. Somewhere along the line, a little bit of the magic was lost. We used to make a whole day of it. We'd eat, catch up, and then break into teams to rival each other in a "heated" game of softball.

Reminiscing about the past I got to thinking how sad it is that as time passes, responsibilities and obligations begin to overtake tradition. Every holiday has its own significant meaning, and I believe that Labor Day should serve as a reminder that we all need to slow down, catch our breath, and for once put work on the back burner. Even schools begin the grind long before Labor Day, changing its traditional significance of the close of the summer and the last hoorah to just another three-day weekend.

Pondering all of this, I remembered something one of my readers told me. After my first article appeared, a Lansing resident named Michael Bergin approached me about what I had written about the art in my church.

He asked me if I could set it up so that his weekly Bible study group could come and see the artwork. He lived just down the street, had seen the artist working long hours at night, and was always curious to see his work. My priest happily agreed to the meeting and we all took time learning about each other's traditions and beliefs.

That night, Michael and the other members of his group were talking about different subject matter I could discuss in my column and they all told me they would let me know if they ever had something they thought might be of interest to our readers. Michael e-mailed me a few weeks back telling me that his family would often get fast food and then find a local park to sit down and eat. So I thought what a perfect idea and a fitting suggestion for a way you can soak up the last bit of summer.

And so even at the expense of sounding a little philosophical, I think we all need to embrace the little things and pretend that we do not hear the constant reminders that echo in our ears about work taking precedence over play.

The opinions are solely those of the writer. She can be reached at nini85@sbcglobal.net.