“when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. ‘The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.’ ”
― Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Everyone has their traditions. The best traditions, especially the best holiday traditions… are the ones you establish yourselves.
I don’t remember how we started… probably inspired by the ending (after the disaster where the Bumpass’ dogs ate the turkey) of A Christmas Story….
Our Christmas tradition is to eat at Bistro B – a (one of many) Vietnamese restaurant in our city.
I’ve written about it before:
2018 Another Christmas, Another Bowl of Pho
2011 Bistro B on Christmas Day
The other members of my family order various things (the menu at Bistro B is literally a book – the menu items run into the seven hundreds) but I stick to the Pho. Today, I ordered number 37 – the beef and meat ball Pho.
It was too much food. I have been trying to eat less. With most of the broth, most of the noodles, and all of the beef consumed, I was full. But, what the hell… it’s Christmas. I went for it.
There aren’t too many empty bowls left behind at that place.
I felt like I had swallowed a football. The rest of the day… well, it’s a bit of a blur.
We did open presents – not the wild blowout of rending paper as it was when the kids were little.
My son did buy my a cool and interesting gift – Tickets to the January 15th Kansas-West Virginia Basketball game – so we will have a weekend road trip to Lawrence in our future. That should be fun – I’ve only been back once in the last twenty years or so.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Bill Chance 