Multiculturalism

Lots of people say this is a bad thing. Lots of others say it's a good thing. I say it depends. Depends on which parts of which cultures you're combining.
Oh, I guess I should say that you can't have multiculturalism without combining cultures. Otherwise you get a bunch of seperate cultures with different traditions living side-by-side and not getting along.
How do you get multiculturalism? Generally by marriages between people from different cultures. So, you see, my mom (and by extension, me) learned how to make Pulla for Christmas breakfast and Matsilaatiko for New Years Day. My father's family was Finnish. Dad doesn't cling too tightly to the customs of his youth, but certain holidays require certain foods. And that's that.
Now my kids have another set of customs from another culture, in addition to the ones passed on from my father's family. Some clothing, some great music, dancing, and a lot of food. A little custom that whoever's in the house at meal time gets fed, whether or not they were expected to be there. It's a nice, friendly, custom. It also means we eat a lot more soups and stews than steaks and pork chops. It's easier to stretch a stew than four portions of meat.
So that's multiculturalism. You take what's nice, what's important, about one culture, and you blend it into the other. You don't sacrifice anything important from the other culture. I know three other families who started with my husband's cultural background on one side, his three siblings' families. Each of those families has used different bits of it. Except for food. If something's going on, there's always food. Even though as far as I can tell one sister-in-law could burn water.