traditions!

egg launch '09

The Kentucky Derby is today. You probably didn't know that, unless you are my Grandma. Last year she told me that she loves horse races. I had no idea, I figured she was like the rest of us, you know- ambivalent. I'd never heard her talk about it before. And frankly my impression of the Kentucky Derby made it seem like way too stuffy of an event for her liking anyway. Everything about it seemed stifling to me- those giant hats, the mint juleps! Is it all really necessary? I don't get the giant hat, fancy dress wearing, watching horses run crowd. But to them it is all for the sake of TRADITION! And tradition is something I'm always willing to get on board with.

My family is big into traditions. There are the usuals like our Christmas brunches, Birthday dinners and new Christmas Eve PJ's. But then there are the unusuals. The ones that newbies, like my brother-in-law, may call "a little extreme." Yes, Jack Frost refills our Christmas stockings on New Years Eve! Yes, we always get a bag of green goodies on St. Patrick's Day! Yes, we always have 7-layer rainbow JELL-O salad on Thanksgiving! Yes, some of us do celebrate our half-Birthday's with vigor! And strangely enough, yes, every Easter we do launch twenty dozen colored Easter eggs off a cliff with a water balloon launcher! To me they don't even seem weird anymore, even Nic has been around long enough that he knows how important things like Halloween sugar cookies are! But all this tradition takes some getting use to. It wasn't always like this either. Most of our most beloved traditions started on a whim- we tried something new one year- loved it and never stopped doing it, ever again.

So for the sake of tradition I'm giving the Kentucky Derby a pass. One lady, one year, probably thought it would be fun to wear a giant hat and the rest is history...Maybe in 136 years people all over the place will be launching their Easter eggs over cliffs too. Why? Because it's tradition!