Dec. 17: Personal tradition

 1. Sometime this holiday season, I will watch the 1969 James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I mention this movie a lot on this blog - it is my favourite Christmas movie and probably my favourite movie of all time. I hope to, just once, see it on a big movie screen before I die.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service takes place at Christmas and was released around Christmastime of 1969, a little more than three years before I was born. My mom would have been 19 when it was in theatres, my dad, 26. 

I watch it every year in December. I don't like watching it when it's not December. 

Another personal tradition of mine is to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special. And I usually livestream myself singing with the kids at the end - complete with the mass synchronized inhaling.

2. Outside of Christmas, I have a tradition with vehicles. Every time I take ownership of a new one, I ensure that the first song I listen to in it is Prince's Let's Go Crazy. I time it just right as well. I pull over somewhere and I put the song on and I listen to the organ intro and Prince doing the eulogy for "this thing we call life." When the funky guitar riff starts going, I'm getting ready to pull into traffic and I'm going full speed by "Punch a higher floor. Woo!"

3. Kelsey was born January 1. I was born January 3. As such, January 2 is called In Between Day. On this day, we try to do something together, but it doesn't happen as often as it should as she has moved into her own life. In the past, we have celebrated joint birthday parties together, gone for sushi, and survived blizzards. We hope to go see Christmas lights this year. Also, whenever we meet someone born on January 2, we try to get a picture taken of that person standing between us. We have done this twice so far. (And if your birthday is January 2, Kelsey and I will refer to you as an in-betweener.)


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