Yesterday We Went "Into The Woods" and I'm Just Thankful I'm Here to Tell the Tale

 

There's something about Christmas that more or less demands that you create "traditions."  There are the traditional traditions, such as decorating the tree, hanging a wreath, making a weird manger  LINK and scaring the bejezuz out of the kids with tales of Krampus  LINK.  Sure, everyone does this, but Dave and I are not "everyone" and so we have our own traditions:

1.  We try to go out to eat at a restaurant on Christmas Eve. We've done this three years running.  We first added this tradition when we lived in the big city.  We stopped at more than several places in time to watch them lock the doors and pull down the shades.  Then we found out that the only place that stays open on Christmas Eve is a steak house chain.  The next year we did exactly the same thing, including the watching of the locking of the doors and the pulling of the shades and then the finding that the steak house is the only place open, because that's what you do to honor traditions - you do everything exactly the same way, and then you say some words in a language that is not your own and then you lay down offerings - no - wait.  That's a ritual not tradition.  To honor a tradition you only have to do things in the exact way every time.  Easy Peasy.  But it was hard to carry on with this tradition when we moved to the Small Town because there is no big steak house chain here.  Still, we tried anyway.  We went to every restaurant and were turned away, which was rather fitting considering it was Christmas Eve, and it became, strangely enough an important part of the tradition.  We had to be turned away - no room in the inn - get it????  Geez, what's wrong with you people?

But without the steak house to fall back on, we had to eat leftovers and wrap ourselves in swaddling clothes, blankets, and sit by the fire with the donkey my neighbors cat.

Did you know that a long time ago, before people had to be back to work after The Day After Christmas, people celebrated  every day until First Night?  Yeah, that was awesome, so we decided that we were going to add a new tradition after Christmas, our Boxing Day Tradition.  We didn't really decide, we just did it once and found it so much fun we did it again.  It's simple really. Anyone can do it.

You just  go out to a store or a mall, expecting everything to be open and have really big sales and then you find out they are all closed.  Now, its very important that you visit the stores in the exact order you did the first time, and then be just as disappointed and stare in disbelief at the darkened store and then say something about how stupid it is for every store to be closed and then feel bad because retail employees should have a day off and why do you need your whatever so bad you can't wait a day or two?

Now, if you like to do things the fancy way, you can say all this in a language that is not your own, or a made up language, or even sign language - doesn't matter.  (I would opt for Latin myself.)  Then you go into the big drug store, for no good reason at all except that you CAN, and also  just to make yourself feel like you didn't drive all that way for nothing,  and then you go to the movies, the theater and drug stores being the only things open anywhere, and promptly sit down to watch a movie that you believed would be like this:


But then you realize that they have left out an important part of the movie in this trailer, the part where the actors burst into song regularly.  Yes, this movie is a musical.  Note: if you go to see the official trailer online now, you will see one that clearly warns you hints that this is a musical, but this trailer must have been quickly put online after a lot of people demanded their money back and probably sued for damages as well. (therapy is expensive you know.)  Oh sure, SOME people KNEW it was a musical because they had actually seen it on stage, ( OH LA TEE  DA!) But we won't talk of those people - no, not on this blog we won't.

 Ok, so you've been warned.  Don't come crying to me if you don't heed the warning.  I can't be responsible for you guys. I've got enough to do without taking on that job.

Happy Holiday!  I Hope you  are all enjoying your own traditions, as twisted as they probably are.

-P