A Tradition

For the past 20ish years, my family had gotten together with some longtime friends to watch the movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and eat what we affectionately refer to as the "Christmas pizza." The attendees of this annual Christmas tradition have varied over the years as some of us "kids" have moved around a little and have gotten married but this year, we were all in town, including The Pilot. If you're not familiar with the movie, you may want to stop reading now because the rest of this post will seem INSANE.

To spice it up a little this year, everyone was to either bring a prop from the movie or dress up as a character. We've talked about doing this for years and we finally went for it.

Having no shame, The Pilot and I dressed up and so did my brother and his family.

"Why is the carpet all wet, Todd??"
"I don't know Margo!"

The Pilot and I were Todd and Margo, the Griswold's next door neighbors. We didn't go all out and purchase silver sweat suits to really be authentic but I did try to make my hair as large and as frizzy as possible.

Cousin Eddie, Catherine, Ruby Sue and Rocky

My brother's kids are probably wondering what the h- is going on....especially since my nephew's hair was gelled and their dad was wearing a women's bathrobe. These poor kids are going to need therapy for sure.

Some of the movie "props" included:

Aunt Bethany, does your cat eat Jell-O?

She wrapped up her damn cat!

Have you checked our s**tters, honey?

SQUIRREL!!!!

I'm not kidding you when I say that all of us....as in everyone in attendance...has a Beanie Baby squirrel tucked into our Christmas trees. Doesn't everyone do this? I guess not because I had some explaining to do last Christmas when I was telling The Pilot about my family's Christmas traditions.

Unconventional? Maybe, but this is one of my favorite annual traditions. We always have fun watching the movie (and saying the lines along with the movie) but it's great to spend some time with wonderful friends...friends who appreciate your sense of humor.