The Ray Way: Holidays

If you want a truly great icebreaker subject so you don't have to start a conversation about the weather or work or sports, talk about holiday traditions. Everybody has them, everybody enjoys talking about them, and most people enjoy hearing about them. Holiday talk in general just gets people in a good mood. They also serve as a nice change of pace in a culture where the hottest newest thing is always in demand. Kids need the newest hot video game, yuppies want the newest hot smart phone, and meth addicts want the newest hot desoxyephedrine psychostimulant. As a society we are drawn towards newer and better. However, at the holidays we yearn to do the same things that we've done for years. We reach for nostalgia and there is a sad pang in our hearts whenever a certain tradition dies off. I love holidays...most all of them. And not just because I get a day off of work. There is so much to celebrate in life and it's interesting to see and hear how people celebrate it. That is why for my first Ray Way I will reveal my grand plan for how I hope to celebrate my holidays from here on out...assuming I am in the same tax bracket I currently reside within. Holiday traditions will undoubtedly change as my life changes. But here's what I hope twenty of my favorite holidays (Fuck Off, Sweetest Day) look like, by holiday:

New Year's Eve/Day: This is my favorite of all holidays and the only one that I hope ends with me in a state of drunken stupor. This is America's greatest holiday and one that I hope to ritualize towards bringing many great memories for me and my family. As far as New Year's during my single life is concerned I hope to continue the traditions that I have already set in place for myself. This involves going to the most rollicking New Year's Eve party that I can, getting uninhibitedly drunk, and trying to score with a female. I'm not going to mandate getting shot down as one of my holiday traditions, but I'm sure it will become one. However, one day I consider it inevitable that a woman will give into my masculine wiles and once I am untimely snatched from the bachelor market my traditions and festivities are destined to change. For starters, New Years Eve is also the one day of the year when I am more than willing to make reservations and splurge for a super fancy dinner. Sure, we might be eating at Steak 'N' Shake the rest of the year, but whatever the "It" place to eat is...I'll make sure we have a table on New Year's Eve. As for the next day's festivities, if we happen to be in Southern California I'd like to make it a ritual that we camp out for the Rose Parade and then hit up the Rose Bowl. If not...I recommend that we get really drunk and hung over and then wake up early to watch the Outback Bowl at an Outback Steakhouse. That's called "Football the Way God Intended". My one rule is that I hope to never spend New Year's Eve in Times Square...Over-rated with a capital "O".

Now partying and drinking and eating and Auld Lang Syneing is all good and well, but I'm not sure that any of this encapsulates why New Years is my favorite holiday. The thing that draws me in every New Year is the "tabula rasa" concept that the holiday espouses. I am an eternal optimist and I always think that things will turn out for the best. However, this always leaves me with a sense of malaise when I examine the year gone by and realize that I did not accomplish everything that I desired to. However, when I have the means to be...I am a "go-getter" and the New Year is the time where I set these goals for myself. It's a new beginning and I use it to evaluate my life. In 2010 I gave up soda. I didn't think that I could, but here we are on November 21st and I'm still carbonation free 325 days in. If I can go ahead and give a spoiler alert for a future post (coming January 7th) I will be fashioning a bucket list for 2011. I don't plan on completing it in 2011, but I plan on hitting it with vigor. And that is going to be my new New Year's tradition effective 2011. I will be planning how to knock things off of my bucket list. My goal is to knock things off at rate of one per month and there are over one hundred things on it so this tradition will be sure to last many years. The other tradition that I hope to start is having a calendar made with pictures of all the sweet stuff I did the prior year.

Super Bowl Sunday: It should be known that within my family and are tight-knit circle of family friends, everybody has their holiday. I can count on the fact that every Christmas Eve I will be going to the Kristof's house. Every Thanksgiving I will be going to the Hummel's house. Every Easter everybody will be coming to the O'Brien household. It's like clockwork. Well...Super Bowl Sunday is holiday that I hope to host on a regular basis. This is a tradition that can't start immediately. I live in an apartment that can comfortably seat six, which is not even marginally enough for any self-respecting Super Bowl party. Also, my television is an 18' from the 1990s, which will not cut it in the 72' HD era. Once these things are rectified I will see to it that people flock to Ray O'Brien's abode for the Super Bowl. How will I do this? I'll tell you how. I will launch a two-pronged attack which will appeal to their wallets and their stomachs. First, I will lure them in by turning my Super Bowl party into a gambling den. Every Super Bowl party has the 10x10 chart where you buy squares and hope to get lucky on the final score. This is stupid. My gambling den will be much better than this. It will consist of all of my guests sitting around and calling out random bets throughout the game. When they call out a bet they will throw money down on the floor in front of everybody. Whoever wants to match their bet will toss his money in and the winner will take it all. Any respectable football fan feels that he knows the game the best and this will be a fun way to prove it.

However, what will really make my Super Bowl party the king of parties is the food. I love to cook. I plan on cooking through entire cookbooks and I love to test new things. I have cooked several high concept dishes for dinner parties in the recent past: salmon en croute, chicken tortilla soup, apple and almond injected pork loin...the list goes on. However, it will all pale in comparison to the delicacies that I will unleash upon my Super Bowl guests. I'll be cooking all day in preparation. Pulled pork, at least four kinds of wings, soups, garlic bread, we'll have it all. There will also be an industrial deep fryer that we will just drop random batter-soaked things into. I will ensure that my guests will not want to eat again until at least Tuesday night. We will drop things in that fryer that have no business being consumed by humans (sunflowers, pillow cases, etc.)...and then we will eat them. The only thing that I will break from my cooking duties for prior to kickoff will be the two-hour pick-up football game that my friends and family will play prior earlier in the day. No flags...this will be strictly tackle.

St. Valentine's Day: This is a holiday where my rituals will obviously change based upon my relationship status. As a single man, I hope to keep doing what I'm doing right now. That consists of driving up to Milwaukee with "my people" for the weekend. Making this annual pilgrimage with "my people" is coming under fire as "my people" are dispersing across the known world. Of the original crew, the two females are now in Denver and Honduras, respectively. That doesn't necessarily pose a huge problem as I have no problem with an All-Meat Road Trip (the traveling equivalent of a Sausage Fest). However, without Erin Swietlik (Denver) we lack the customary rationale for our annual venture, her mother's charity auction: Auction for the Heart. However, despite the fact that we will no longer be going up and staying with Swietliks, I don't think that this excursion need be abandoned. Despite the way I mock Wisconsin for it's second-rate dairy industry and resemblance to Canada, Cedarburg and the greater Milwaukee area are actually pretty banging. And what would I do without a bi-annual trip to fine establishments like the Potawatomi Casino (where Andrew will sit next to me and bad-mouth my blackjack play while he himself is loosing his shirt), the Cedar Creek Winery (as seen in the logo for the Lush Life Chronicles), and the Silver Creek Brewery (the only bar that I have ever loved). So, we will probably be staying in a hotel, but I'm still hoping we can talk Erin out of Denver for the festivities. Somebody has to stop me from buying a trip to Sanobel Island at the auction.

However, the largest threat to the annual Milwaukee pilgrimage is the prospect that I will again one day have to concede to the standard practices and rituals of Valentine's Day within the confines of a relationship. As you will surely know if you have read my book, Zen and the Art of Relationship Maintenance, Valentine's Day is one of the four high holy days in female culture and not celebrating it properly will be detrimental to your happiness within the relationship. For any interested parties that have not read my book, the other three days are her birthday, your anniversary, and Black Friday. Women always say that they want you to be spontaneous and get them flowers or tell them you love them for no reason on a random Tuesday. However, that doesn't mean that you don't have to do so on Valentine's Day. So my goal on Valentine's Day will be to be the most romantic mofo this side of the Prime Meridian (I don't want to have to compete with the Swiss). There will definitely be a romantic dinner and I will attempt some grand romantic gesture (I have several examples but I'll save them for my actual Valentine's Day post). And then from there it will hopefully be all Earth-shattering no-boundaries sex.

Mardi Gras: There's really only one place to be for Mardi Gras and it just doesn't make financial or rationale sense to go there every year. Sure, we'd all love to go the Bayou every Fat Tuesday to drink a lot of liquor and ogle a lot of breasts, but the rest of the country doesn't stop for Mardi Gras so it just isn't feasible. Don't get me wrong...at some juncture I have to spend Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I dare say that I would make a serious effort to go once every five years. However, just because I'm not in New Orleans doesn't mean that I should carpe that diem. It's a holiday that needs to be celebrated properly. And I don't think that half of the drunken buffoons who line the streets of Bourbon Street have any clue what the hell they are celebrating. It is meant to be a day of indulgence because it marks the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. So, if like many God-fearing Christians, you plan on giving something up for 47 days you might want to indulge yourself on this day. A note for people who think that Lent is 40 Days: It is not. Some people get to 40 days by cutting out all the Sundays...these people are cheaters with addictive personalities. They will cheat on their taxes, their spouses, and their chemistry tests. Watch out for them. Also never introduce them to nicotine or pornography, or else for all intents and purposes you have ended their lives. For reasonable people who think that Lent should be 40 days, it just runs from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday. This makes sense because that's when Jesus came out of the desert. However, my priest said to be a man and do the full 47...so I do.

However, nobody wants to talk about fasting and self-denial. Let's talk about how I plan to let the depravity flow in the years to come. My goal is to start the Tuesday before Fat Tuesday. In preparation for the Mardiest of Gras we will meet at the gym after work every day that we can make it for an entire week. I'm looking for a group of about six guys with at least three making it every day. With families and late nights at the office there will obviously be days when people will have to miss. We will perform strenuous workouts followed by a nice chat in the sauna. We will do this for a whole week in the hopes that it will offset the damage we will do come Fat Tuesday. While the working out will be a man endeavor, any ladies who are deemed chill enough will be invited out for the evening's festivities...not that most women will want any part of it. We will venture to an Outback Steakhouse where we will order more food than we have consumed in the previous week and we will eat and drink to excess. It will be glorious and should more than replicate the culinary excess of the actual Mardi Gras, especially since I have never been impressed with the state of a New Orleans Po' Boy. That being said, the liquor on Bourbon Street lives up to the reputation. The real question that I'm sure you are asking is how we will replicate the random titties that are in copious supply down on the Bayou. I'm glad you thought about asking. The answer is Deja Vu, Cincinnati's favorite strip club. With a belly full of Blooming Onion and a lap full of dance, we'll be ready to take on Lent.

St. Patrick's Day: Contrary to popular belief, this holiday isn't just an excuse for Irish people to go out and get smashed. I'm the most Irish person you know and I've gone an entire St. Patrick's Day without drinking a drop. It was 2007 and I have a policy of not drinking when I'm sad and Xavier had just gotten screwed out of the Sweet 16 in their game against #1 Ohio State. I was sad that St. Patrick's Day. However, I recognize that celebration is necessary on this most momentous of days and I fully endorse it. It's not often enough that my Irish heritage receives its proper appreciation. However, the disheartening thing about the day is that everybody pretends that they're Irish and those of us that actually are heavily of Irish descent get lost in the shuffle. I'm not sure that I totally understand it. On Mother's Day, single career women don't drive around with child safety seats in their cars trying to score some free flowers. On Veteran's Day, civilians don't wear fatigues out to the bars to try and score some free drinks. So why is it that on St. Patrick's Day every German, Russian, Italian, and Argentinian try to pass themselves off as 1/8 Irish to feel special and try to score a free cold pint and warm body?

The first thing that I intend to do on St. Patrick's Day is call my mother and tell her Happy Birthday. That's one reason that I am so thankful for the St. Patrick's Day festivities. I try to be a thoughtful son and remember the important dates when I need to call home but sometimes it is easy to forget with all the hustle and bustle. However, holidays ensure that I will always remember to call home on my Mother's Birthday and on Father's Day. So it's only my Father's Birthday and Mother's Day that I need to worry about. After mom and I have caught up I'll go out to a bar...and by a bar, I mean TGI Friday's. They've got some great drink specials on Black and Tans and anything with Jameson in it. Real bars are bound to be over-run by the faux-Irish riff-raff, especially Irish pubs. No self-respecting Irishman will go to an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Day. Any other day of the year is fine, but on St. Patrick's Day we'll just get depressed by a bunch of posers trying to co-op our culture. I'm not saying it's wrong...it happens to every culture during Oktoberfest or Cinco de Mayo or Boxing Day, but I just don't want to be there to support it. I also won't worry about wearing green on St. Patrick's Day. If I have an accessible, clean outfit that features green then great, I'll wear it. I also have so many pairs of shamrock boxers in my wardrobe that there is an 80% chance that I am wearing some on any given day. And if anybody pinches me for not wearing green, they had better be female (and on the buttocks, preferably) or else they are going to meet Kevin Sorbo and The Grim Fandango (the names of my Irish fists). Now that would make a great St. Patrick's Day tradition.

April Fool's Day: This is easily the most often over-looked of the major holidays. That's right, I called it a major holiday. Making idiots out of our loved ones is a staple of our national identity and by not giving Prank Day it's due we are denying that part of our identity it's rightful due. Maybe you don't believe me. Maybe you think that April Fool's Day gets it's proper homage. Well then, I must ask: "Why do most successful April Fool's Day pranks hinge on the victim not knowing that it is April Fool's Day?" People don't even have the common decency to wake up and recognize what day it is. That means that the holiday is not respected. Sure, this comes as a blessing to many of America's amateur prank pullers as it makes their victims easy targets for their shenanigans. But the day isn't about shenanigans. I haven't shenaniganned in years. I've hooliganned, I've no-good-nicked, I've ne'er-do-welled, just yesterday I found myself rabble-rousing...but shenanigans are for amateurs. We need to aspire to prank better. Your pranks should be so meticulous and committed that they totally stun the person even though they know full well what day it is.

If you haven't fully invested in April Fool's Day then don't bother at all. If you're going to half-ass your role as the prankster, then you had better just let others force you to embrace your role as the sucker when we unleash some awesome pranks upon your candy ass. A proper April Fool's Day prank should require substantial planning that starts no later than March 15th. It should include props, plants (people...not vegetables), and enough weightiness that Punk'd would be proud of how you made your friend cry...I'm talking high fives from Ashton Kutcher. Seriously, making people cry means that you succeeded. My friend Willie Byrd once pranked his mom with the the old "I got my girlfriend pregnant" phone call. She bought it and he let her freak out and cry for almost half an hour. This prank has to score low on style because of it's simplicity but the execution and ruthless is the only perfect 10 that I've seen recently. The best brand of April Fool's Day prank is the double-cross. You co-op a friend into an April Fool's Day prank against another friend only to have that prank allegedly go disastrously wrong and leave your other friend thinking that he has ruined somebody's life and/or will have to suffer serious consequences. Beware you brain-dead herpes incubators that I call my friends, I'm already planning a new era of prankage to begin in 2011. If anybody wants to form an alliance let me know...but beware of the double cross. 

Easter: My rivalry with Easter goes back a long way. I know that it is the most important day of the Catholic faith, but it might be my least favorite major holiday. I have my reasons. Here are a few: Reason #1: As I mentioned earlier, Easter was the holiday where everybody came to our house. This meant that I had to help clean up and wasn't allowed to sit around like a bum as if it were Christmas or Thanksgiving. Reason #2: Our family won a pet rabbit on Easter. Like every pet this rabbit gave me no joy and only provided heart-break when I had to watch my whole family cry when it got mauled by a coyote and then again six months later when it died. Reason #3: I look awful in pastels. Reason #4: This holiday sneaks up on you. It doesn't have a set day. It doesn't have a set day of the month. It's impossible to plan around on a year-to-year basis because it switches months on you.

However, what does not kill me only makes me stronger, that's what Nietzsche told me. And so the pratfalls of Easter have made me stronger. And I will pass the Easter gauntlet down onto my children. I will do so lovingly. Mainly through every child's favorite Easter tradition: the Easter egg hunt. I know that I always enjoyed the annual Easter egg hunt. And once I became a teen, and was too old to participate in the Easter egg hunt, my friend Daniel and I became the hiders of the eggs. This was ten times better than searching for them. It's much the same reason that I prefer to Hide during Hide and Seek. It's predicated upon the fact that you can only Seek as well as the Hider can hide. Despite the thrill of the hunt...the hider is in control. And I might not be the best at such games (though I think that I am), but I am certainly the best at raising the stakes. I'm was YAP summer camp Hide and Seek champion four years running, and each subsequent year they banned my hiding spot from the previous year because it wasn't even marginally fair. If the internet had been big back then they would have nicknamed me "The 404 Error".  I take this same approach when hiding eggs. The reason that American kids are lazy is because they Easter egg hunt has taught them that they will receive rewards for using skills as trivial as their ability to identify bright colors. My egg hunts were significantly tougher. Daniel and I would scotch tape orange eggs into the Orange trees. We'd fill eggs with heavier prizes and then sink them in the pool. We believed that working for one's eggs built character. And when I have kids of my own, they and the neighborhood chitlins will labor to find the eggs that I hide. There will be no bright colors. I will buy (or make if need be) camo eggs. Eggs that are easier to find will only be filled with cryptology clues to eggs with real prizes in them. When I run Easter...America is finally going to make up that educational gap with Sweden and Japan.

Cinco de Mayo: Much like many other holidays that we celebrate...I don't think most people know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo. I know how Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilley celebrate it. They consider a day when we trick Mexicans into going out and grilling in the park so that we can break into their houses and steal all of our stuff back. But what is Cinco de Mayo, really? Many people thinks that it is Mexico's Independence Day. That is not even close to correct. Cinco de Mayo isn't even really celebrated in Mexico except for Pueblo County. It is much bigger among Mexican-Americans. What it actually celebrates is an 1861 victory by the Mexican forts of Loreto and Guadalupe over the invading French army. I'm all for celebrating Mexican heritage, but let's call it that. Let's not cheapen it by celebrating too hard. That would be like Xavier students throwing a kegger because we beat St. Bonaventure in basketball...I'm not saying don't do it, I'm saying just say you're celebrating because it's a Tuesday. Don't cheapen it. A victory over the French is not a win to be proud of...it's a win that's expected by any army, militia, or collection of mediocre boy scouts. Therefore, my Cinco de Mayo celebrations will be nothing to flashy. I intend to celebrate the best of what Mexico has given us with a laid back attitude.

I will start this by using my lunch break to get a massage. Massages have been around since the dawn of time, but the practice of using them medicinally was introduced by the Mexicans. Technically, the Romanians can stake a claim to this as their contribution but upon further reading I do not consider a "Romanian massage" to be an actual message...in that I do not want one. I will also spend my day listening to Enrique Iglesias and Shakira (I know that neither of them are Mexican but it's the same base language and I don't like Luis Miguel). In the evening I will cook myself some canteena tacos and maybe go out with some friends for frozen margaritas. I don't mean to trivialize the military history of the Mexican people but beating the French is no more impressive than St. Patrick beating some snakes. So, let's make like the Irish and just celebrate some heritage with responsible drinking.

Mother's Day/Father's Day: Here is a holiday that will become increasingly more difficult as I progress through life. Assuming that I one day marry a lovely lady and she bears at least one child I will have to approach each of these holidays from multiple angles. At that point I will have to celebrate both my mother and the mother of my children on Mother's Day and then on Father's Day I will have to both celebrate my own father and potentially be celebrated. It will become a more awkward dynamic. My Mother's Day will remain much the way it is now...a treacherous tight-rope walk to remember just which Sunday in May it is. I will give my mother a call and wish her all the best and make sure that she's being taken to some fancy restaurant that she will enjoy. Father's Day is a horse of a different color. As was implied earlier I can't ever miss it because it coincides with the final day of the US Open. As an avid sports fan I know that if the US Open is wrapping up, then it must be Father's Day weekend and I should give my pops a call. On my first Mother's or Father's Day with a modicum of disposable income I promise to also start getting them substantial gifts.

However, the real traditions will come into play once I have a family of my own. On Mother's Day I will be sure to make the mother of my children feel like the queen that she is. And if that involves dressing out baby in adorable clothes and making her breakfast in bed, then that's what I'll do. But it would be lunacy of me to make my own Mother's Day traditions. That's her day. We'll do whatever she wants. Now Father's Day, there I can lay down some grounds for what I'm planning, right now. It will involve a round of golf and dinner at Outback Steakhouse (God...I hope it's open on all these holidays). It will also involve a mandatory game of hoops when my children come of age...age being 8. Nothing flexes the old Father's Day Man of the House dominance like beating your far inferior offspring in an athletically competitive endeavor when they still haven't grown up to your shoulders. This tradition will continue will continue until I think that they stand a marginal chance of beating me...then we will switch to chess. I'll never be concerned about them beating me in chess...unless they found all of their Easter eggs, then I know that I have a worthy adversary.

Memorial Day/Labor Day: Let's be serious. These are basically the same holiday, though they commemorate completely different things, so they will be celebrated in the same manner. Mainly...it will consist of me trying to remember to get money out of the bank on Saturday morning so that the Monday I have off when I need cash doesn't take me by surprise. I will then use the day off of work to catch up on my blogging. So expect some big Memorial Day and Labor Day blogs. I also might run a 5K.

Fourth of July: This is another holiday which has traditionally been a holiday to spend in Milwaukee. And while Milwaukee is a great a city...I think that I just like the concept of road tripping during the Fourth of July. Every city has it's own unique way of celebrating this holiday with the commonality that almost all of them involve fireworks. So for the remainder of my single life I would like to try and experience Independence Day in as many different cities as possible. I'd be more than willing to re-do some of the ones I've already done. I'd love to go back to LA and watch nine different fireworks shows from above way up on Angeles Crest. I'd love to go back to Washington DC and see the spectacular on the National Mall. I'd also definitely be up for doing Milwaukee again, although I wouldn't go to Summerfest this time. I'm pretty sure that I hate concerts. I hope to use the Fourth of July weekend as a travel weekend in the near future, because I won't be able to travel as much when I have kids.

However, once I do have kids the holiday will become even more specially because I'll teach them how to celebrate the Fourth of July like true patriots: with barbecue and fireworks. There will be no Outback Steakhouse on the Fourth of July. There will be on the Twenty-sixth of January because that's Independence Day in Australia...but the Fourth of July is a day for America. So we'll be eating American food grilled by an American (me). And my family and our guests will then be treated to a home firework show that will put all others to shame. Upon my children turning 10, they will be invited to go firework shopping with their pops. We will go to whatever purveyor of fireworks we can find and order the works. I have been a keen observer of backyard fireworks shows in my life and I know that while there are many great varieties of fireworks, there is only one that is a necessity. It is absolutely necessary that we have several of these at my party. In my extensive 25-year history with fireworks only once did I think that I might be seriously injured, and it was when that bad boy tipped over and started spraying legit rockets into the crowd. Every American deserves to have that fear pulse through them in order to make them feel alive and my backyard firework shows will provide it.

Halloween: For many people Halloween is their favorite holiday. This is understandable. Halloween is full of a lot of great memories for me. But I am at the age where I am forced into the realization that no matter how kick-ass a life I lead for the next 75 years...my best Halloweens are behind me. To further emphasize the magnitude of this point. I would say that when you look back at my life and ask me to pick out my twenty best Halloweens...all twenty of them may be behind me. That's because Halloween is a holiday of diminishing returns. It's for the kids, and there are different benefits depending upon your age, but those all tend to dry up at about 23. From age 1-3 you get to be adorable. Let me put it out there that I was not an adorable baby. My brothers were adorable, but little Ray was a mook. The only pictures of me at the tenderest of ages that are adorable are the picture of me staring awestruck at the cookie-bearing Ninja Turtle in the supermarket, and pictures of me at Halloween. Any baby looks awesome when you dress them up as a cowboy or a ninja or a pirate. From ages 4-12 you get the benefit of Trick r' Treating...though I'm pretty sure Trick r' Treating was more awesome when I was growing up because cities weren't imposing fascist Trick r' Treat schedules that you had to follow. Ages 13-18 get to go to Halloween parties which are always fun. At this point it becomes less about the candy and the spookiness and more about the costume selection. I met my first girlfriend at a Halloween party...because you can tell a lot about potential quality of a relationship by a person's costume selection. I may expound upon that theory in a later post. Then you get to college and college Halloween might be the best of them all. College Halloween is what 30 Rock implies Gay Halloween to be. The sluttiness is so thick you could cut it with that pirate hooker's plastic cutlass. College girls think that they can make any costume sexy...and they are so far right (until proven otherwise). For instance, Ninja Turtles eat only pizza, worship a rat, and live in the New York City sewer system. There is nothing sexy about that, but I saw a girl dressed as a sexy Ninja Turtle...and it was sexy.

However, with each passing year your window closes. Your costumes stop becoming adorable, you get too old to Trick r' Treat, and when you graduate college it is no longer socially acceptable to attend College Halloween. Things start to look a little dismal. I think that next year I'm going to search out this Gay Halloween to see what it's all about. In the immediate future, I'm just going to stay the course. I'll go to Halloween parties that are full of people I know (read as: prudish people) and then I'll go out to the bars that are full of people in their late 20s and early 30s and thus that have forgotten how to be as slutty as they were in college. Then one day, I will have kids of my own and the holiday will get better again. There will be a good deal of vicarious living going on. I will dress my young offspring up in adorable costumes when they are babies to re-live the joy of that era. During the Trick r' Treat era, I will not actually go Trick r' Treating, but my children will never know what a Starburst tastes like because I will have to confiscate them all to check for razors...and sure enough they will all have razors in them. Thank God your dad is watching out for you, future children of mine. And to compensate for the loss of college Halloween I intend to enter into a formal contract with my wife that allows us to pick each other's Halloween costumes. I have no shame so I am more than willing to wear whatever she chooses...and just maybe one of my ten best Halloweens could still be in front of me.

Thanksgiving: This is gaining some serious ground on New Year's as my favorite holiday. So it's getting four paragraphs instead of the measly two that I have allotted to these other holidays. That's double the holiday fun for Thanksgiving. And there is no place that I would rather spend this holiday than in good old La Canada, CA. Most functional families consider it important that they spend the holidays together. I value family very highly and can totally get behind this philosophy. However, I order my holidays a little bit differently. Despite the fact that we value our fighting men and women and owe them a debt of gratitude...nobody really cares about spending Veteran's Day with their family. For most Christian families Christmas is the big one. It's the coup de grace of holidays and the only one that Bob Cratchit can muster up the audacity to ask Scrooge off of work for. However, for me that holiday will always be Thanksgiving. It is much fonder for me than Christmas. I love Christmas, but it encroaches upon my birthday and nobody really cares that Ray is turning 15 when Jesus is turning 2000. It also places a lot of stress upon a person because of all of the hustle and bustle. You've got to decorate thoroughly, you've got to find presents for loved ones, you've got to send out Christmas cards and newsletters, and I've never been with a company that believed in the concept of the Holiday bonus.

No Thanksgiving is a totally positive concept of a holiday. With it's limited decorations and gift-giving fan fare, the only real work is for the person preparing the meal. And I love to cook...so that isn't work at all. Thanksgiving or "T-Gives" as some affectionately call it is such a beautiful time. It's a holiday centered around nothing but excessive food consumption and bickering with family. So simple. There is nothing consumerist or religious or complicated about it. It doesn't keep creeping up in the calendar like that other holiday...it is when it is. It also actually commemorates something successful unlike Canadian Thanksgiving, which celebrates an unsuccessful attempt at something. Thanksgiving has a nice (albeit mostly false) story about people who wear shiny buckles and feathers, respectively. It's the pinnacle of successful imperialism and Americans had better damn celebrate that. Anybody who doesn't appreciate that can hop on the Trail of Tears out West, where we will inevitably catch up with you eventually.

However, it's time that we talk about my traditions. These will center around the two things that we Americans worship most at Thanksgiving: food and football. I want to celebrate both of these aspects of Thanksgiving with "grenades". From the food angle, Thanksgiving is not complete until I have popped down multiple Marty Galindo Thanksgiving Grenades down my gullet. A Marty Galindo Thanksgiving Grenade is made by hollowing out a dinner role, stuffing it with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, butter, and stuffing and attempting to digest it in a single bite. On the football field a "Grenade Launcher" is where I direct every receiver on my team to flood one half of the end zone then I drop back, pantomime biting the pin off of the football, and then lob it catapault style over my shoulder and into the end zone. It has a 50% success rate...however, the 50% failure rate are all interceptions. I don't think that it has ever been dropped in the dozen or so attempts. The O'Brien Family Turkey Bowl is a tradition that will always live on for as long as I am alive. If I have to go visit the wife's family every few Thanksgivings, I will take that on the chin...but they had better be ready for some football. I would also love to continue the long held tradition of attending the Loyola High School Thanksgiving Day Practice that had been frequented by alumni for 29 consecutive years. However, this would require that they actually advance in the playoffs. Bring back Steve Grady!

I can be talked into any competition on Thanksgiving. Aside from football I also enjoy playing the Name Game with family and friends. For those of you that don't know what this game is it's basically The Game of Things with over 20 people and only using people's names. For those of you that don't know what The Game of Things is, please recognize that I don't have the space here to explain it. Ask your friends. It's basically a battle of psychological warfare. It is played amongst the O'Briens, Hummels, Kristofs, Magnusons, Morris', and miscellaneous guests. I will teach my children to be masters of this game. They'll learn to eliminate suspects based upon your perceptions of their educational limitations, they will learn to cut dead weight off of their team (sometimes the dead weight cries), and they will learn that if Jessica's roommate Teal ever comes...she is the one who put in the hip hop artist. They will know all of the sneaky cut-throat maneuvers necessary to win. This will basically be a requisite of any family competition. People already fear me in any friendly competitive endeavor because I will cripple my opponents at any cost. If my offspring hold these values dear and are so feared  by their friends and family then I will shed a tear of joy because the holidays will truly be a magical time.

Hanukkah: This holiday has always had a fond appreciation for this holiday. For the better half of my life I have attended the Hanukkah parties of my best friend and neighbor, Daniel Fishman (see: Easter Egg hiding). The parties were always an excellent time with light-hearted celebration. As much as I would love to celebrate all Jewish holidays, most of the other ones lack the pizazz of Hanukkah to entice the goyum into celebration. Though Passover is pretty kick-ass. Hanukkah has many traditions that come standard and I would, of course, observe these. I already observe the lighting of the Menorah. I purchased one to balance out all the Christmas decorations that I was tasked with buying and lit it in the Senate office. They then told me that I couldn't because it violated the open flames policy and the religious candles exception didn't apply to me because I wasn't Jewish. I then told them that this was discrimination and that the Diversity Center was right next door. They then let me keep it lit. Lawyered.

The thing is...I'm not Jewish. However, I feel that there is a mutual understanding between progressive Christians and Jews that we are allowed to co-op the other side's festive holidays as long as we respect the high holidays. More than half of the Jewish folk that I know celebrate Christmas. Therefore, I think that the O'Brien household will celebrate Hanukkah with all of the latkas and gelt hunts and dreidel mastery that I remember so fondly. The gelt hunt will of course turn into a mid-Year practice for the Easter egg hunt where if the children aren't crying with frustration, then I clearly haven't done my job. The dreidel action will be my way of introducing my children to gambling. Any child who masters the dreidel will then be given a card-counting test. I can count cards, but Daddy needs a partner to tell him if another table is "hot". However, my favorite tradition from Hanukkahs past that I hope to re-live until I am too old to walk is getting drunk in a hot tub. I know that doctors tell you not to, but like everything else that doctors say is a health risk...it is awesome.

Festivus: So my friends and I celebrated this holiday last year during our weekly dinner party. Apparently, other people enjoy celebrating this holiday significantly less than I do. I think that this is closed-minded discrimination on their part. They dislike it because they don't understand the culture from which it comes. It's a Festivus for the rest of us. I don't need to invent snazzy traditions for this holiday. They've already been invented for me. The Festivus pole was not present at our last celebration of the holiday. I fully plan on rectifying that for next year. It's a simple an necessary reminder that holidays have gotten too decorative and we need to take a step back and simplify our lives. I totally agree with Frank Costanza: tinsel is distracting. I also think that the Festivus feats of strength need to take a bigger role in our impending celebration. The only problem here is that we will surely not be celebrating the holiday at my place and it is the head of household's job to spearhead the feats of strength. That means that this duty will likely fall to Andrew Smith, the predominant home owner of my social circle. Even if it doesn't and somebody else wants to take the reins I am likely screwed in this regard. My friends aren't really down for these feats of strength. I don't mean to imply that my friends aren't "touchy". They totally are. However, they're sexually-suggestive-stroking-on-a-winery-tour-and-creep-out-all-of-the-other-tour-goer-touchy. They're not release-of-pent-up-physical-aggression-touchy. Whenever, they are touched in a moderately hostile manner basically turn into what I imagine Mrs. Peacock from Clue to be like: uptight little prisses who are too damn decent to be manhandled. So to better facilitate this holiday I have to find my local Fight Club chapter and invite some of those guys over for the feats of strength.

However, neither of the Festivus Pole nor the Festivus Feats of Strength encompass what Festivus is truly about. The true meaning of Festivus can be found in the Festivus Airing of Grievances. We had a good round of these at the last Festivus celebration and many people found them to be sensationally uncomfortable. However, they're just an amusing twist on what several of the "Holiday Season" holidays are all about. Thanksgiving is about realizing what you have in life and embracing it as a wonderful gift, Christmas is about promoting Peace on Earth and good will toward men by embracing your generosity and the spirit of giving, and New Years is about making a fresh start for yourself with the understanding that you want to be better in the next year than you were in the last. All of these holidays involve your decision to change for the better based upon an internal stimulus that arises from holiday self-reflection. Festivus is about your decision to change for the better based upon external negative feedback from those who choose to associate with you. It's basically the same principle that leads people to believe that interventions are a good idea. And they are...they rarely work, but they are demonstratively hilarious. And there is no reason to get so offended by the Airing of Grievances. Ignorance isn't always bliss. It's good to have an insight into the things that others don't like about you. And if you can't discuss communal shortcomings with your friends then they aren't really your friends. The key to making this step palatable is to spread out the scorn and the bile over many people so that an individual doesn't feel picked on. Make it like a roast. Feel free to sting somebody really bad, but by the time they are able to finish blushing you've already moved on to somebody else. That'll make for a Festive Festivus.

Christmas Eve/Day: This is the Grand Daddy of modern American holidays. These are the traditions that people keep and treasure throughout their lives. Sure, much like Linus from Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown I think that Christmas has becoming something a little unsavory that it's not supposed to be. But that doesn't mean that I don't think that it is the most wonderful time of the year. I don't want to hear Christmas music in October. Hell, I don't really want to hear Christmas music until about December 9th...but when Christmas time comes rolling around I can't help but be filled with the holiday spirit. Christmas in the O'Brien household will start no earlier than December 1st. This is when we will pull out the Advent Wreath and the Advent Calendar. Subsequent decorating will take place over the course of the next two weeks. My mom always did the Advent Calendar with her boys and I will with my offspring. God Bless the McDonald's Dollar Menu. Caroling, Christmas Cookies, and Secret Santas will also be staples of the season in the O'Brien household. However, the true beginning of Christmas will be when we get our tree. It will be a magnificent tree. It will be a live tree. And I will not cut it down myself. That would deprive my children of the annual trip to the Hide and Seek Mecca which is the Super Christmas Tree lot. This is where they will hone the patented O'Brien hide and seek skills. We will decorate this tree as well as our house as a family. However, the one thing we will not have to do as a family is pose for the fascist Christmas card photo. We will have family Christmas cards but they will use an existing picture and possibly some editing by "The Cloud" if need be.

However, it's important to remember that Christmas is a time for family and love and giving. It's not about consumerism and fanfare. Therefore, there won't be any movies that my family watches on a year basis or any decorations that we are overly attached to...not even Snow Village (sorry, mom). What will be a tradition is me and my family helping others less fortunate than us. Every Christmas season, me, my wife, and my kids will do an Adopt-a-Family Christmas, we'll work with Habitat for Humanity, and volunteer at soup kitchens. In my idealistic mind I would like to think that my family would be this generous the whole year round...but I know better. Life gets busy. I always want to be charitable but things get in the way. However, Christmas has a way of reminding you what's important in life. Plus I think it would be pretty cool to go shopping with my kids, so they can clue me in on what an inner-city second grader is in the market for these days. I've got Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's Day to be debaucherous. Christmas is a time for responsibility and good intentions. That being said, I won't totally abandon my hedonistic ways...my kids will be leaving Santa milk and ice cream sandwiches.

NOTE: I believe in Credit Where Credit Is Do...So a few quotes in this selection might be from my friend Katy Baldwin and Eric Foreman from That 70s Show.