Follow the Fortune Cookie

Day 3 - Good, Nontraditional Traditions

"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" 
Day 3: Good Traditions
Every country has its prestigious traditions.
Some of those are our favorites.
In the community you live now enumerate
the good traditions you and your family are
anxious to celebrate.

         Interesting topic. I'm not sure that my family has any traditions that we're anxious to celebrate. As a whole, we're so scattered, always on the move, that it was hard growing up to really have a staple in things to look forward to. In a way, it's the small things that we look forward to, at least in my opinion.

         My family has had some lean years. When Christmas seemed like too much of an extravagance, we celebrated Three Kings' Day (Epiphany). I remember stealing a pair of my father's shoes to set outside my bedroom door the night before the gifts were suppose to arrive. Bigger shoes, bigger reward. Christmas or Epiphany, my older brother C--- and I would wake up before the sun was barely peaking over the horizon to open presents. We were mercenary in waking the others up. Had some great family moments when we were still all together.

         The first days of summer have always been big. California summers hit the senses fast and hard. There's a feeling one gets along the skin when the days stretch out longer and the nights warmer; a tingling in the pit of of stomach and a slow smile that creeps. When we lived in the agricultural valley, the heat was oppressive. We used to watch eggs sizzle on the pavement and play baseball in dirt fields where crops weren't growing anymore. Every year, a tradition of sorts, my older brothers and I would buy ice cream from the ice cream man. He came only twice a year - once during the winter when no one wanted cold things and a drive-by pass in the summer when someone would have to stand in the street (brave soul) to flag him down. We'd stock up for the long summer days ahead. I can still remember the liquid blue sugar high.

         Good, nontraditional traditions - the way I like them.