You Don’t Deserve a Boob*

The theme for this Christmas was creating new traditions. Dara and I are spending our first Christmas as a married couple together and we wanted to turn this first into a series of firsts. For example, we thought Christmas Eve would be a good opportunity to watch a classic Christmas movie. There are many such classics, including “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and “Miracle on 34th Street,” but we have elected to make our yearly Christmas movie “Love, Actually.” Mom disagrees with our choice, but it’s probably better than my first choice, “Die Hard 2: Die Harder.”

This morning the Harrison family woke up a bit too early for my taste, but nowhere near the pre-dawn wake-up times I used to enjoy when I was growing up. Dara and I had a nice, relaxed time exchanging gifts and making breakfast. I won’t go into detail about every gift I received, because I received many (I have a generous wife and family), but the following gift bears mentioning: Dara gave me a book called “Recording the Beatles.” As the title implies, this 500+ page behemoth recalls the recording sessions for the Beatles in great detail. By detail, I mean, the authors describe what kinds of microphones were used for which songs, special techniques employed, and comprehensive sketches and schematics outlining the layout of Abbey Road, the arrangement of the instruments, and the like. Among the many items included in this special package are a copy of the original lyrics for “A Day in the Life” in John’s handwriting, an original photo of the Beatles and George Martin conversing in the studio, and a postcard by George to the Beatles.

Oh what the heck, I’ll tell my other gifts (forgive me if I forget, I’m just very excited). Dara gave me a daily flip-calendar based on the book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves,” which is a grammar book I keep in my bathroom at home. My wife knows me well. Dara also gave me a Barnes & Noble gift certificate, two Ben Folds Cds, and the “X-Men” trilogy. After the gifts, I called my family back in Toronto and had a nice chat with them. Everyone seemed in a good mood. After having a short nap and showering, Dara and I made our way to the Hampton household.

We arrived Chez Hampton with our modest cache of gifts and were showered with a generous cascade of gifts from the Hampton and Salti families. Dara can speak for herself (she did very well), but my haul included a box of chocolates, two great DVDs (“The Office” and “Rent”), an emergency Smores kit, and a very cool midi-controller to be used on a music program I use. They were very generous. More important than the gifts, of course, was seeing and spending time with family. It was a relaxed environment with the children enjoying their toys and the warm rays of the sun beating down on the leisure living room setting.

At sun-down, Dara and I left to do some Christmas-light viewing (brief), and then grab some Benihana-type food at a good local place, which actually had better food and entertainment than Fullerton’s Chomp Restaurant. This was to be our Chinese-Food section of Christmas in our newly-created Christmas tradition. We also wanted to fit in a movie, but didn’t have time. But it’s not a rigid tradition, so maybe we’ll try again next year.

In all, it was a great Christmas. It marked a different direction than my traditional Christmas celebration, and didn’t quite feel like Christmas in the (beautiful) shorts weather, but it was a nice day. Relaxed, low-key, warm day. A day of making new traditions. Here’s to years more of new traditions.

Oh, and, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

*Another title could have been "traditionally speaking" or something less weird. Don't ask.