Every year, immediately after Halloween or during trick-or-treating (whenever the pumpkins and pink hair dye run out first), grocery stores all around the U.S. start the festive tradition of making you even more aware of how little money you have. Whether it's charging you $7.99 for a 16 oz. bag of Christmas colored chocolate, $109.98 for a tree you buy too early and it starts shedding all over your living room, $119.98 for the "forever" plastic version, some new version of Mariah Carey's holiday album which we all hate, or affording a rib roast ($70 for meat you have to slave over for a few hours just to have to share it with family members you don't even know, or like enough to talk to before this point of the year? Please, no.)
Either way, it gets us. We consume. We fall for it every year. "Festive, traditional, holiday drinks," soups made by the tens of pounds, cookies, and sweet treats made that you forgot were a thing until it started getting cold. Gifts you must buy for people. Like your cousin, Dave, who just had a baby (again), so don't forget to buy it some…shoes? Even pumpkin spice is still around for all those basic white girls out there to faun over. (Queue basic white girl voice): "You know, this tequila would be so much better with some pumpkin spice and maybe like…some cream in it? To like, make it more festive! Ya know?!” Yes, Becky. We all know. We always know. Lay off the tequila before you go home with that old man you think is really Santa.
But really, what I think department and grocery stores really show us, is that anything can be made a tradition if you really push it on people hard enough. And for me, these are traditions that have made my list that haven't yet been globally recognized. Folks, the key word here is yet. Being that I am like an extremely greasy car salesman with pitching things to people, I have "faith" that these will kick off in a big way in the next couple of years—assuming we aren't all dead. So, happy holidays, and let's get started.
Yeah, I know. More people than not have been doing this ever since the hit 'A Christmas Story' came out in 1983. But for me, the main difference here is to find the oiliest, most deep-fried, sign-chipping restaurant. Usually located just off SE 82nd or NE Sandy in Portland. Or, for me here in Seattle, a place just near Shoreline by the Goodwill and just past the smoke shop, with a parking lot and creepy neon lime-green open sign. These places always have egg rolls. Egg rolls and egg foo young. That's all I want. People would be surprised to find that very few places are willing to make you a deep-fried Asian-style burrito anymore. Spring rolls are not the same! It's like getting the 'healthy' alternative, with a bunch of green stuff inside. Why? Anyway, you get this delicious food, and you take it home, sit in front of your TV, cuddle up with your new Christmas socks you got, and watch The Star Wars Holiday Special. Hopefully, with someone special to endure the 2.5 hours of extra footage with. If not, more Chinese food leftovers for you, and you get to laugh at the funny parts of the Chewy scene, where mom is cooking people food, without feeling judged.
It takes a special kind of person to actually watch this and enjoy the cinematic masterpiece that it is. Now, I know Harrison Ford flat out denied ever being in this film (did all the actors get roofied before going on set?), and Carrie Fisher played the film to motivate party guests to get going, but really…the movie is great. Now, what's more, finding someone to endure—I mean enjoy—this with you is just about the biggest holiday miracle you could ask for, and I don’t believe in miracles. Make sure to pause the movie if they have to go to the bathroom. Even if they say, "don't worry, you don’t have to pause it…I can hear it from the bathroom.” Pause it. Don’t listen. You don’t want them missing a single second of what is possibly the best holiday tradition ever.
This is quite truly something that should be observed more as a tradition. Each day I go to my local grocery store to grab some beer, sometimes eggs, sometimes meat if it's discounted, and sometimes a discount pie. (Who doesn't want discount pie?) Sometimes, I'll even grab some soup if it's on sale. But I mean, I never do full-on grocery sprints during the last week of the year. Please, if you don't have that rib roast from the last week of October sitting in your freezer, don't bother getting it. Or do, and become one of the dozens of people I like to scoff at in grocery stores, saying things like, "of course you would wait until the last minute to buy a ham, Kevin. That’s why you had to buy canned,” or, “I didn’t know you could shove that much shit in a grocery cart, Stacey, who the hell are you feeding right now that requires all those boxes of Stove Top?”
This is possibly one of my favorite traditions. It's fun, light-hearted, and generally speaking, no one gets hurt. Unless you glare-stare, roll your eyes, and scoff poorly under your breath at a volume loud enough for the woman with 523 items in her cart to hear, who may then cock her head to the side and feel the need to say, "Excuse me?" with her hand on hip, ready to dispense some Karen-speak and a possible slap.
And this, my fellow readers, was a list of my three most favorite holiday traditions I hope to make more globally recognized. So, go now! Find the egg foo! Scoff at a Karen with a beer in your hand…opened! Force a stranger to watch Star Wars Holiday Special with you, and maybe get lucky. Happy whatever to you all.
Hannah One Cup also likes the following traditions: Stoop drinking hot buttered rums, dressing dogs up as evil Santas frothing at the mouth, stealing hams in general, and storing snowballs in the freezer for later purposes—sometimes for alcohol ICEEs, sometimes something more violent. Find her on Facebook or in the meat department.
