Christmas Tradition

Since Thanksgiving has passed, I think it is only appropriate that everyone give their full attention to the next big holiday about to come through: Christmas. That is after all what the radio will do, my roommates, Temple square, and countrywide hourse decor will all do. It makes sense that this blog also follows the lead. I will do so by addressing the Wazimu (Paul) Christmas.

First, I would have to say that my family is one of many traditions. When I say traditions, I should clarify that is most likely not your idea of tradition. In fact our more popular family tradition is the one year tradition. You can do that math on that one. Having a tradition that you do only one time a year (at Christmas in this case) for only one year means you do the tradition...yes, one time! It is great I must say and has brought a lot of joy and excitement to our family vacations. We hardly spend Christmas in the same place twice. Sometimes we are at home, sometimes we aren't. Sometimes we open gifts before we leave, sometimes after, sometimes during. Sometimes we eat a home cooked meal, sometimes we get Chinese or African buffet.

Nontraditional Paul family traditions:

1. The green pickle. I think it is a German tradition that we might have done a couple of times. It is kind of hard to hide a pickle in a tree every year is you don't always have a tree when you are traveling.

2. We wore silly paper hats that they gave us at the resort during our Christmas dinner.

3. One year we went and helped feed homeless people.

4. One year, this wasn't really a tradition we tried to start but we touched the stone where baby Jesus was born!

You may be asking how this ties to an Oh Lena moment. Well I'll enlighten you. Mom likes traditions. Traditional traditions that is, and is trying to start them for us every year. That is how we get all these traditions started but we are never doing the same thing from year to year so she has to start a new one every year. It gives us all a good laugh...hopefully for her too. If only she's see that we have plenty of traditions that I think are a lot cooler and fit our family a little better. We are a nontraditional family and need nontraditional traditions.

For example: we will always take weird pictures whether it is because of our faces or what we are doing.

We most likely will take a BYU picture if we are in a new place.

If we get in a pool together, we will do backflips and make a totem with as many people as we can.

We will always have fun together. How many families can sit in a car as long as we do together and still love each other when they get out of it.

And finally, we will most likely never have the exact same Christmas twice.

So while mom can try and get us to start all these new traditions, one day she'll see how many we already have. I can honestly say that I love the traditions that we have. We still have them because of you mom too. Think about how many of those family traditions involved taking pictures...dad isn't the one that is camera happy! =) So once again I say that our family is a family of many traditions, nontraditional traditions. Even if you don't believe it, I wouldn't change what we have for any number of traditions.

The Noble Art of Eating French Fries

A few stray french fries (preferably McDonald's) tumble out of their cardboard package onto the tray. Lena sits down on the brightly colored plastic seats and adds three additional packets of ketchup lately procured from the attendant to supplement the two measly packets brought by her slothful servant (husband). Five should be enough for regular size, she surmises. If not, experience suggests slothful servant will not finish off his two packets.

Each ketchup packet is lovingly squeezed into a generous mound. A stray fry is dipped and consumed to confirm by taste what is perceived by texture and color. This true connoisseur hardly needs to validate by taste that the ketchup is true blue American and not some knock-off substitute.

Sandwich and drink are consumed slowly over the next 5-10 minutes while the all important sorting takes place. Three categories is the norm. The short fries, often the crunchy variety, are set into one pile. This pile also includes the bent, broken or other misshapen fries. Occasionally, one of these is consumed to complement the hamburger or chicken sandwich. Next are the straight, golden brown french fries who lack only the length to be perfect. These length-impaired fries are stacked neatly row upon row piled no more than three high. And finally, the select few are lovingly separated into their own neatly-formed stack. The chosen ones set aside as a vintage wine to be opened later in the evening.

Each stack is patiently and methodically worked in its proper order. One tender french fry at a time dipped with a firm flip of the wrist. Only on rare occasions does the temptation of the perfect pile overcome restraint. Patience is finally rewarded in an extended feast of each perfect fry richly dressed in sweet red ketchup.

I will look for an opportunity in the future to take a picture to add to this blog post but for now just this narrative must suffice to highlight another of Lena's endearing quirks.

Neat piles of Fatburger Fries