Tradition!

My family has several traditions. Oh, not the family I grew up with - those traditions were few and far between. No, my new little family, consisting of Will and myself. We're making traditions as we go. Some of them come from my family or (more likely) his, but many are just ours.

Every year on September 30th we begin reading Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October. Each chapter is one day in the month of October, with a prologue to be read tonight. Will always reads to me. He does the voices.

Any day now we will have another holiday, on account of getting married. I imagine that one will be pretty much the same as the anniversary we've celebrated for nearly seven years now (February 13th for those keeping score), in that we may or may not exchange gifts, and will almost certainly have something nice for supper.

Halloween is a favorite around here. I think I am going to dress as a ninja this year. Maybe we will have our first horror board game party at the end of October as well. We've been planning this party for a while, in the abstract. We have the Buffy game, a lame-ass game called Vampire Hunter (or something), the official Dracula game, and (best for last) Zombies!!! The guest list is tough because we don't want too many people but ALL of our friends would be fun to have at such a party. We may have to do more than one.

We haven't got a Thanksgiving tradition yet. Wait, that isn't true. Every year at dinner we go around the table and say what we're thankful for. Melanie started that one. It can be awkward but is really what the holiday is about for both of us. Well, and the food.

Christmas is my favorite holiday. Don't tell anyone, but I like it even better than my birthday. We don't visit our parents. In fact, we don't leave the house. Christmas Eve we have a meal (pizza last year and that's likely to carry over because if I may say so, my homemade pizza is divine), open one present each (my family), and listen to Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater's production of A Christmas Carol. Every year I fall asleep before the Ghost of Christmas Presents (hee) shows up. Christmas morning we wake up, usually early because we are great giant children, make coffee, open pressies, giggle a lot, and listen to a lot of holiday music (something we usually start doing no later than December 1st). Then we start cooking. It's a Mexican feast, and any and all of our "orphaned" friends are welcome to stop by and be fed.

Then there's New Year's Eve. For years the tradition was Will and Shelby, staying in with bad movies. We still stay in, and often watch bad movies, and Shelby even joins us sometimes, but I think we need to work on this one a bit more. Following New Year's Day, we have a wait, broken up only by Will's birthday (he doesn't like a fuss), to Valentine's Day, which we've always celebrated in conjunction with our anniversary.

After that is Tax Day, when the tradition is general floundering about and praying for money back. I know, I'm reaching.

We haven't got an Easter tradition at all. I feel like that should be remedied. Or, you know, a tradition ought to be resurrected. Oh, I slay me.

Are there any other holidays? I mean, Christian or Traditional holidays? My family used to celebrate St. Nicholas Day, December 6th, with shoes put out at night for gifts. It was usually cookies and sweets, so maybe I'll make that (or the 5th) a baking day. We also "celebrated" Channukah, by which I mean we lit the Manorah, in deference to my step-father's lapsed Judaism, but that's as culturally diverse as we got, and Will was actually Christian. Oh, we also celebrated Saint Lucia's Day once or twice (December 13th), but that is a day when the children serve their parents breakfast, and so will have to wait a few years. (By the way, I apologize for any spelling errors in this paragraph particularly - my spellchecker is gentile.)

I love traditions. They make me feel safe and happy. I particularly love carving out our own traditions. (Which reminds me, must buy pumpkins this year.)

What are yours? (If you are feeling as verbose as I was, I urge you to make your own post and comment here with a link.)