Black Friday. People spend all day cooking and shoving their faces with gargantuan portions of rich and filling food, napping on the couch, drinking, and watching football (guilty as charged) only to set their alarms for 2am to get up and stand in line for that must have G.I. Joe (are those still cool?) or that jacket that was marked down to -$49.99 if you get to it before dawn. I never quite understood that tradition and I'm afraid, or not, that I never will. Last year, my fiancee Phil and I got up at 5am to go to Best Buy for a laptop that was promised for 60% off it's original price. We stood in line for an hour only to get in the store to stand in line for another hour for someone to tell us that it had been sold out. Fail.
But that gets me thinking about traditions. It's that time of year. The time where families gather for meals and parties and stories and reminiscing. Maybe you don't have a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal with turkey and stuffing, and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. Maybe your family makes lasagna and boycotts football. Maybe your family goes out to dinner and avoids the tornado effect that a house full of people and food creates. For me, the holidays are a sacred time of old traditions that I'm trying to keep alive amid the creation of new ones.
Today I took off work, broke out the Christmas decorations, put in Christmas Vacation, and, donning my Santa hat, I Christmas-fied my little apartment. Phil got home and told me I needed to dial it back a little but for me, it was just right. I can't wait to embark on this season of tradition...it just makes me smile!
What traditions do you and your family have?
