I believe it is traditional for one of the first five or so commentors on any your posts to say "McMegan is a Jackass!", no?
I find that the desire to come up with new traditions to avoid stultification very rarely becomes necessary. Things always change and it is much more common to wish we could do something more than two years in a row.
4: I wish you still used your traditional pseud.
4: I wish you still used your traditional pseud.
I do too.
But so many letters! I don't like the computer predicting my thoughts, so I always have to type them out to feel secure.
You could argue that the shortened version is actually much more cryptic.
UnfoggeDCon and a couple of other things as well. This year is Death To Traditions.
Let's go back to the old traditional ways of closing cuts.
This year is Death To Traditions.
But we did that last year!
10: Are those little Santa Clauses forming your e-mail address?
Why, you must not have read the thread about apo's grandmother and MATLAB and UniCode.
The topic of traditions reminded me: when I was growing up in Chicago, my dad used to go into relatives' houses early on New Year's Day and toss a handful of oats, nuts, and pennies into the air shouting, "Happy new year!"
A phone call to him just now confirms this tradition came down from my Polish grandfather Julius.
13: after that thread, it's almost traditional to have endless conversations about Unicode and programming languages in unrelated threads, I guess.
15: and then he would dance gleefully on the oat, nut and penny covered rug while singing "Auld Lang Syne".
Hell of a vacuum cleaner salesman, that Julius.
It was the New York Times, wasn't it.
My family has this tradition of traditions as well, and it drives me nuts, as the one that most readily springs to mind stems from the year (just a few ago) that my aunt made sausage lasagna for Christmas.
A bit hit that year due to the guest list: a bunch of savages, they were. Hereonafter, we must have this sausage lasagna, despite the fact that most of the attendees do not particularly want it. Yet here we go: how to accommodate the lasagna in the oven when it arrives. How to force people, over their protests, to take some of the remainder home. Really, people!
17 is indicative of Sifu's tradition of making me laugh.
My ex-in-laws had the New Year's tradition of going out the back door and coming in the front carrying sparklers at midnight. I added "and playing Auld Lang Syne on the accordion" to the tradition, though I believe it has since lapsed.
My new in-laws have the tradition of really miserable Yom Kippurs, so we don't spend it with them.
21: It's curious that they translated it "Santa Claus llegó a la ciudad", which means, roughly, as they seem to intend it, "Santa Claus has arrived in town" vs. the traditional "Santa Claus is coming to town". But hoppin' nonetheless.
I'm always on the lookout for new traditions. It's not quite a "tradition," but I've got a method of varying the walk home from dropping off Iris that I'm quite dedicated to (partly because it's already turf that I've been dog-walking on for 7 years, so it threatens to be deadly dull). Our little family isn't that long-established, but we have our special meals, annual trips, and so on.
Having grown up in a sort of non-ethnic white family, the only traditions we had were the ones we made*, and I've embraced that model.
* Not counting extremely broad cultural traditions like T-giving turkey, the only family tradition I can think of that predates my parents' marriage is the pork roast we have for Christmas dinner, and I'm not 100% certain that was actually what my dad's family ate for that meal - I just know the recipe came from them.
Wait, there was a thread about MATLAB? Jeez I'm out of the loop.
Matlab sucks, and the only correct encoding of Unicode is UCS-4.
24: So, what's your walk-varying method?
he uses proust's dad's method. then about half the time he turns the last corner and the dogs are all, OMG we're here?
Yeah, we do that too - did it more growing up I guess, but try to do it with my created family too. C's family didn't have many, but we have adopted the good ones (e.g. gammon with his mother on Christmas Eve). I do like a bit of predictability. Just yesterday, we went to Wales and as we came through the toll on the Severn Crossing, the 6 year old shouted from the back, "This is daddy's favourite bit of motorway in the whole of Britain" before he could say it himself.
||
Can I just say what a darling that Darcy Burner (Dem candidate for Congress in WA-08) is?
I mean, she must be awfully busy running for Congress, right? And yet yesterday she took the time to tap out a personal appeal to me on her Blackberry (actually, a Windows equivalent) from the back seat of her car. Or, at least I hope I she was in the back seat, because I'd hate to think she was taking the crazy risk of typing on that little keyboard while driving.
[Knecht, my little cabbage] -I just got off the stage at today's rally with Senator Joe Biden in Tacoma. The excitement was electric! People are ready for the kind of change the Obama/Biden administration will bring.
I'm eager to be in Congress in January to help them get things back on track. And we are in a terrific position to win, thanks to your help.
But ballots have already arrived in homes, and although we are leading in the polls, time is short.
I am about to arrive at my next event, but I wanted to give you this quick update and ask if you can dig deep again and click here to help us cross the finish line.
Many thanks,
Darcy
Sent Wirelessly Via Windows Mobile Device
And to think, I get that kind of personal attention after making a $20 donation. I can only imagine how she treats the big money donors!
Oh, drat! Discretion error in 30. Can someone please redact?
The generation of all the dead traditions weighs like a nightmare on the living brain.
So, what's your walk-varying method?
A simple grid of 2 parallel streets, with the school at one corner. The shortest distance is along Street A, so we always beeline on the way there. Returning, I take a different cross-street to B each day, progressing one at a time, and going down the east side for one round, west side for the next.
I think that, next round, I'll just do the alleys.
it's hard to respond to "A tradition? We only did it once!" and not sound kind of crazy
Does the life of a tradition begin at the moment of inception, or can it be safely and ethically aborted at the end of the fourth trimester?
It's curious that they translated it "Santa Claus llegó a la ciudad", which means, roughly, as they seem to intend it, "Santa Claus has arrived in town" vs. the traditional "Santa Claus is coming to town"
Sad are the children where the translation is, "Santa Claus just left".
(Armsmasher has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of 35.)
The Flophouse is also ditching the Mid-October Party, which would have been the fifth annual. But I don't think that tradition was so much abandoned as it was killed.
I assert that doing something once may be 'starting a new tradition' but the something is not really a tradition until it has been repeated at least once. At that point it may be claimed as a tradition.
I also assert that certain 'traditions' may become exceptionally tiresome and even absurd when they are continued 'ad-nauseum.' At that point, the point when everyone except for one wants to stop doing the tiresome thing, the justification of 'but its a tradition' should be met with the counter claim "Oh stuff it."
Usually that doesn't happen, and the tradition limps along in a very sad pale imitation of its former self.
For example, take the "tradition" of arising at dawn to find our Xmas stockings filled - and continuing to do this when the youngest in our group is in his thirties. Yeah, been there, done that, want to sleep in.
I'm not sure allowing the birthday person to choose the meal falls in the same category. We've got that tradition and it is kind of nice to have one day a year when one gets to eat what one wants.
I think we should revive the old tradition of sacrificing the ruler when things are going badly in the land. It worked for Sweden. [See the Ynglinga saga] Or we could round up all those Faux newsreaders and Rush and Bill et al. and say fuck it about the carbon problem and weave a lovely wicker statue...
How many traditions are just laziness? What shall we do? I don't know, what did we do last year- viola tradition.
I have certain New England relatives who make a big deal about Thanksgiving, in that a newsletter is sent out, etc. I think this year is 154th or something like that. My cousin call them them black shoe brown shoe crowd, due to one distant aunt's proclivity to mixed footwear. Larry, Darryl and Darryl to the mind of this city slicker.
Going Emerson on you for a bit, but many of the Xmas traditions we as Americans think of as ours are from Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert in the can. So German and English. But Knecht would be the expert.
Not two minutes ago there was a post re: "fair Ynglinga". As it has since disappeared, it's got to be Ben's...
The pertinent portion:
"It has happened oft ere now,
That foeman's weapon has laid low
The crowned head, where battle plain,
Was miry red with the blood-rain.
But Domald dies by bloody arms,
Raised not by foes in war's alarms --
Raised by his Swedish liegemen's hand,
To bring good seasons to the land."
Xmas traditions we as Americans think of as ours are from ...
How could it be otherwise? Generalizes to most tradtions, really.
However, the current inclination of Santa Claus in many (most?) countries is from Coca Cola, so there is that.
For example, take the "tradition" of arising at dawn to find our Xmas stockings filled - and continuing to do this when the youngest in our group is in his thirties. Yeah, been there, done that, want to sleep in.
There is something to be said for thinking about establishing family traditions with an eye for the long haul.
Example: sneak xmas stockings into kiddies rooms when they are asleep, and give the explicit permission to open everything in them and mess about with that in their rooms only until adults are ready for breakfast. It'll be years until they figure out it's all about sleeping in.
However, the current inclination of Santa Claus in many (most?) countries is from Coca Cola, so there is that.
Do I get to say here that I hate slimmed down Santa, and non smoking Santa? He's a mythical creature people. He does not have cholesterol issues or lung cancer, nor will he develop either.
For example, take the "tradition" of arising at dawn to find our Xmas stockings filled - and continuing to do this when the youngest in our group is in his thirties. Yeah, been there, done that, want to sleep in.
Do you set alarms, or is it simply that someone will always wake up early? My lot are not morning people, and about 8am seems to be average going on past Christmases. Which is good, as my brother and I used to be up at about 4am, but like soup said, we knew not to wake our parents until 7.
We had a fairly pared down Christmas last year, due to being in Canada, and I'm finding it hard to drum up any consumer frenzy enthusiasm yet this year. We did a Little House on The Prairie Christmas a few years ago (though without the swimming naked across rivers bit) (or the shooting of geese) - perhaps I could persuade them that all they really need is another tin cup each ...
We're trying to start a No More Shit, We've Already Got Some tradition for Christmas, but it's a struggle.
44/45 From my 2nd hand experience, divorce can really make a mess of those sort of intentions. I've never seen so much crap around as the couple christmases after [family member] separated. It wasn't just the parents overcompensating, but chunks of extended family. Very sad, really. I hope it will start improving.
We do vaguely Norwegian-style Yule Eve, have the big family dinner, drink, eat vast amounts of Xmas cookies and Julekage, open presents, sleep in the following day. Stocking are hung on the stair-rail with care, and stuffed surreptitiously by various humans the day before. When the Offspring was young, he was allowed to get his stocking when he woke up - only if he let the parental units sleep in. After the divorce, I got him Xmas Eve, his dad got him Xmas day, and everyone was happy.
When I was a kid, we set out our shoes, not stockings, and there had to be a bowl of porridge for the Julenisse [the Norwegian equivalent of Santa]. We got oranges and chocolates in our shoes. There was also lutefisk. To this day, I do not eat lutefisk, having been traumatised by it as a child.
Apparently the idea that Coca-Cola created the modern Santa Claus is something of a myth. There were competing images of Santa already established, but one of them was indeed the fat guy in a red suit. Coca-Cola probably helped ratify that as the default one.
Walt's right - the rotund guy with the beard, pipe and funny hat was illoed by Thomas Nast sometime in the 1860s.
Traditionally -- and look, you have to go with me here -- I have the last comment on every unfogged thread.