YippyKayYay!

In case you missed it, here's the post about family traditions that I wrote for Blue Eyed Owl. 

It's the Christmas holidays: Christmas trees, twinkly lights, presents, egg nog, Die Hard, Santa...wait, What? Die Hard? That's right, Die Hard. You see my family's a little different than most.

On Christmas morning, most families open presents, play, have breakfast and maybe listen to carols. Mine? We stumble down the stairs heading for the coffee (sometimes because we had a little too much the night before), grumble something unintelligible to each other, and plunk ourselves down on the couch in front of the Tv. You see, we're Polish. For us, Christmas Eve is the big deal. That's when we have a huge (think 500 gazillion courses) dinner with free flowing vodka and wine followed by presents, inappropriate jokes (usually involving the relative who dressed up as St. Nick this year), and more of aforementioned various adult beverages. So by Christmas morning we're done. My mom, me and my sister somehow find our way onto the couch and stumble on top of each other under a thick blanket, nursing our coffees in our Pjs. Then we hit play. And the opening sequence of Die Hard starts.

Don't ask me how this little tradition started. I have no idea. But for as long as I can remember we have watched Die Hard, followed by Die Hard 2 on Christmas mornings. Only the first two though. They're the only ones that are Christmas themed. So they're the only ones we watch.

Forget “It's A Wonderful Life,” nothing says Merry Christmas to me like Bruce Willis crawling bare foot across broken glass, or Alan Rickman threatening people in a German accent.

When I got married, my Husband accepted this quirk of mine readily. He got a kick out of the fact that he's the lover and I'm the fighter. But when we spent last Christmas with his parents and I managed to coerce his very conservative parents into continuing the tradition he was very surprised, but mostly because his parents actually really enjoyed the movies.

Now that I have my own little girl, I'm going to have to curb my tradition temporarily. The movies aren't child friendly, so I'm going to have to change things up a bit. I'll be moving my Christmas Willis to the evening, after she's gone to bed...until she's old enough. Then, we'll stumble down the stairs heading for the coffee, grumble something unintelligible to each other, and plunk ourselves down on the couch in front of the Tv. You see we're Polish, so by Christmas morning we're done. My Husband, my daughter, and me will somehow find out our way to the couch and stumble on top of each other under a thick blanket, nursing our coffees in our Pjs. Then we'll hit play and the opening sequence of Die Hard will play.

Because I don't think what family traditions we have matter so much as we have families to make traditions with.

So this holiday season, from my family to yours, “Yippeekayay mother******!” (AKA Happy Holidays)