Traa-di-shon! Tradition!

Yeah, I guess it’s been a while since I posted. Well, in case you didn’t catch it in the comments in Thursday’s post, my boyfriend and I broke up. So I’ve been trying to avoid doing too much thinking, which means a decrease in blog posts. Don’t worry, I’m feeling much better thanks to my amazing roommates, and of course there’s no cure for break-up blues like the holidays, so I’m back.

So about the holidays: I highly doubt if anyone could find a more tradition-bound family than mine at this time of year. Almost all of my mom’s siblings’ families live within an hour drive of my grandmother’s house in East Millcreek, so we get together a lot during the holidays. (More than usual—the extended family gets together at least twice a month as it is. I miss them when I’m stuck in Provo.) And the 30-40 of us can sure have a lot of fun. Who needs friends when you have family? Anyway, as a result of spending massive amounts of time together, traditions just seem to spring out of nowhere. Almost every single day of this season has its own special traditions.

The day before Thanksgiving is officially known as Pie Day in the Miller family. We fill the kitchen of my grandmother’s house with enough estrogen to scare away men for miles around. Large amounts of Chinese food are consumed as the pies are prepared for Thanksgiving and a Christmas movie plays in the background. This year we only needed sixteen pie crusts, a record low, I think. There was one year we made over 30 pies. In order to chill all the pie dough, we had to empty out the ice cube maker in the freezer. An unsuspecting uncle wandered in looking for a glass of water and ended up with a glass full of pie crust—in the Miller family, we have pie crust on tap!

Then Thanksgiving itself: we usually cook a couple turkeys in several different ways. My uncle Dennis, when he was alive, would always deep-fry a turkey. Holy cow is that good stuff! This year we had a brined turkey in addition to the normal roasted version. We usually have about 40 pounds of mashed potatoes—can’t risk running out. Lots of homemade rolls and cranberry sauce. But my favorite traditional food is rainbow jello. I made it this year—it takes about 3 hours—and it was really good.

After dinner, we laze around for a few hours. There’s usually a Christmas craft project—candy advent calendars this year—and football on the TV. Everyone continues snitching food, grazing as their stomachs settle down. In a few hours, we’ll clear everything off and set out the pies. Once we’ve all had pie, we officially open the Christmas season by singing along to “Sleigh Ride” by the Osmonds—not “Jingle Bells/Sleigh Ride,” the real “Sleigh Ride.” You can’t get it on CD. We had to get it transferred from the record. :D Anyway, we all sing at the top of our lungs, doing the air guitar and sliding up to high falsetto parts. It’s great! That song means Christmas and family in my mind. When I’m feeling homesick, I’ll turn it on, be it December or July. Then we draw names for the Christmas gift exchange.

My dad and I always do Black Friday shopping together. The last few hours of Thanksgiving day are spent perusing the newspaper ads, planning our attack strategy. This year we were up at 3:30 AM, outside Circuit City at 4, inside at 5, and out at 5:30. We did pretty well: I got a 1 GB SD memory card for $3, a 1 GB flash drive for $4, and a 7 megapixel digital camera for $130. We managed to also hit Target ($4 DVDs, newer releases too), FYE (the new Media Play—I picked up some new headphones and got to talk to a really interesting lady in the line. She works for the railroad.), and RC Willey (Marisa—we have a new DVD player! How much do you love me?). All in all, it was a pretty good year for the bargain hunters. To me, it’s like a game to plan the best strategy for dodging the crowds in the stores and to guess which items will go first. Yeah, it’s a little materialistic and, oh, insane, but then again, it’s way fun and I save a bunch of money.

The holidays are sort of a weird time for me. Usually, I value my alone time a lot. I'm quite "solitary as an oyster." (You better know where that's from.) But during Christmas, I can't get enough of people. I just want to be around them. We don't necessarily have to do anything; it's enough just to be. To quote a Christmas classic: "I’m crowded, but at least I’m loved."

Choose to Celebrate

*insert soapbox here*

What's the deal with people making such a big deal about not making a big deal about their birthdays? Said in a less confusing way, people seem to go out of their way to avoid attention on their birthday, to the point of outright asking people not to do things for them, or avoiding letting people know about it in the first place. For example, Katherine, Ben, Nicole . . . . From what I can tell, the front seems to be some sort of humility thing--you don't want people to think you are so self-centered as to think the world should revolve around you, just because you were born on this day--along with a desire to avoid public attention. Maybe it's just leftover from my obsession with The Giver, but I feel very threatened by this desire to eliminate the specialness of birthdays.

Okay first, I see no reason that you should treat your birthday like any other day. There's nothing essentially conceited about celebrating your birthday--it's your own personal holiday; might as well make use of it. There's nothing wrong with a putting a little extra fun in your day. I mean, I personally look for all the excuses for celebration I can get. I go all out for St. Paddy's Day (March 17th), Saint Agnes' Eve (January 21), Pi Day (March 14--3.14), even National Waffle Day (August 24--coming up soon!). With so much to stress out about in our everyday lives, why shouldn't we seek out the little reasons to celebrate--be it your birthday or just Mole Day (October 23). No, it needn't be elaborate, but don't be so embarrassed about having a little fun for the arbitrary reason of your birth! There's almost nothing better than being joyous for no really good reason, being less hard to please and more eager to celebrate the beautiful joyous aspects of life. Try it some time.

Second and probably more important, choosing not to celebrate your birthday actually seems more self-centered to me. That's because celebrating your birthday is really not about you. What? Yeah, that's right. Here's the reason: your birthday exists so that your friends and family have the chance to show their love for you, not so that you have the opportunity to receive love from them. And by cancelling or diminishing your celebrations, you deny them an opportunity to express their feelings, serve you, and build charity. In fact, charity is a good way to understand what I'm talking about. Always being self-sufficient keeps you from the uncomfortable position of having to ask for service or the embarrassment of actually receiving it, but it also denies others the opportunity to serve you. If everyone avoided receiving service, then how could we build charity?

This is much like my opinion on wedding celebrations. First, no need to act casual and cool, like a wedding is no big deal, cause it is! Second, having a small little reception doesn't show that the bride and groom are more modest and humble than others; rather, it indicates to me that they are so self-centered--thinking the wedding is all about their comfort--that they deny well-wishers the opportunity to wish them well in their marriage. The wedding is about the guests and the relatives, not about the couple--they have the whole rest of the marriage to spend together. Sacrifice a little time and effort for the people who helped you get there.

So, try to think of people's birthdays as more like their own personal Mother's Day--you wouldn't possibly downplay that holiday, would you? Maybe yes--people seem to be more hesitant to celebrate in general these days, and it makes me feel sad. It's as if they don't want to be caught looking childishly excited about a holiday. But didn't Christ tells us to become as little children? And yes, I really think being eager to celebrate is part of that council. We should be full of joy and happiness, not shying away from celebrations because they might cause you to take some attention from others.

Or maybe it's just because I come from a party-throwing family.

*soapbox end*