Christmas Traditions

Merry Christmas. Last year I had a song for you. It seemed like the most appropriate one for this forum, even though it has nothing to do with food.

What can I say, I’m sentimental. Really, I’m a big softie. I cried watching Jurassic Park.

That aside, holidays are all about traditions. Presumably you have some. Likely very few people decide to spend any part of the day keeping up with their favorite regional food blogs. But we have a few traditions ourselves. And it wouldn’t feel like Christmas without them.

First, there is the annual appeal for you to watch The Future of Food, which I find to be a compelling movie about genetically modified foods. It’s just under ninety minutes of thought-provoking footage and commentary. Make some popcorn, plug the computer into the television, and halfway through the movie spit out the popcorn as you realize it is one of the principle GM crops.

It’s not that bad.

If you are really bored, you could read the original post I wrote about the watching of movies on Christmas. But I think this year the lot of winter blockbusters are more appealing than when I started this tradition back in 2009.

For dinner tonight, with any luck, we will dine in State College, Pennsylvania on the traditional Christmas dinner of my people. I cannot recall the year, as my memory for dates has never been very strong, but once before the Fussys found ourselves in State College on Christmas day.

Naturally, we ate dinner at Golden Wok.

Although we had neither the house special fried brown rice nor the salt and pepper pork chop. Both of which sound pretty darn appealing. Hopefully we’ll have some appetite when we arrive, as there will be a carload of leftover pizza for the ride down.

It’s a long story, and not part of the specific holiday tradition.  But in honor of Chanukah, last night we ordered a Buffalo chicken pizza, which was topped with fried chicken chunks. That’s the miracle of the oil, baby. And as it would turn out, moving from a large to an extra large pizza is only $1.50. Yes, it’s a bad idea. But it was a bad idea I found irresistible.

Suffice it to say, we have a fair bit of leftovers.

Arriving to Golden Wok with any kind of appetite seems like it will take a Christmas miracle. And that may be a lot to expect for four Jewish travelers. If there were three of us, and we were bearing gifts, that would be one thing. But we’re two adults and two children, bearing little more than a few pairs of clean clothes and a menorah to get us through the rest of Chanukah.

I’m guessing your traditions are a bit different. If you are so inclined, I would love to hear about them, especially the food bits. And if someone in your family insists upon heating the HoneyBaked ham, let’s talk. Maybe we can get that fixed in time for next year.

Ruined hams aside, I hope you and yours have a magnificent holiday.