A Christmas Story

Christmas time is a special time of year where people participate in personal, memorable, & sentinental traditions that are unique for their own families. That's one of the reasons why I love it so much.

Tonight as a family we did the important steps of Christmas prep/tradition, (other than the spiritual stuff), that are necessary with our small babes. 

We wrote, and mailed our letters to the one and only, Mr. S. Claus at our usual Macy's Santa Mail drop. Had to drive all the way to Palm Springs to do it though. Ugh.

We visited with "a helper to the real Santa" for a bit, and only for a bit. So thankful there was not a long line.

And after that, we added a new activity to our Christmas fun. We attended the Palm Springs Festival of Lights parade. It was my first parade since I was in one back in 6th grade. (Ha, toot toot of my own horn there.)

Parking was crazy - parked in a spot we should not have, cold out, tons of people, but somehow we lucked out and got great seats on the bleachers right across from the main grandstand. So, this parade thing had promise.

Since this was a new activity, I couldn't exactly constitute this parade as a tradition for our family, as I was reflecting on the things we had done that day waiting for it to begin.

But that changed quickly, in a comical, sort of a stretch, kind of way.

My Sugar was worried about our parking spot (remember I said we shouldn't have parked there). So, he left us to go find another, not an illegal spot. And when he returned, he said, "I got a better spot. Oh and I just bought Chinese food. It will be ready in 10-15 minutes."

At that moment, my family tradition hit.

"Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra." We would be eating Chinese food in the middle of a Christmas parade.

I thought of Ralphie - as a determined young boy and as an older, wiser narrator. 

"Hooo hoooo ho!" 

"Oh fuuuuuudge!" 

"You'll shoot your eye out!" 

An official Red Ryder BB gun

A major award

"Naddafinga!" 

"I like the Wizard of Oz." 

And so many more flooded through my mind. It made me smile.

A Christmas Story is one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time, and will always remind me of my childhood Christmas traditions.

As we were walking back to our car Jack asked, "Can we come to this again next year?"

I told him no because we will be living somewhere new. He was okay with that because he thought, "Well, I bet they'll have one wherever we move to. I liked that parade."

As we walked back to the car I couldn't get this tune out of my head. "Deck the harrs with boughs of horry, fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra."

On a side note, the people around us probably hated us because our Chinese food smelled amazing and was yummy too. But my Sugar was an absolute genius. It was better to feed our children and keep them happy through the parade, then starve them and have them be grumpy amongst a large crowd. Really, the Chinese food could be compared to a Christmas miracle. 

(Wait, was that another stretch?)