'Tis the season!

Decorations up. Presents wrapped. Bring on the Christmas.

I like to think that my friends and I have built up our various little traditions. Traditions like making breakfast on the weekends before doing something as a group, Kate's on Tuesdays, celebrating New Year's at Jen's place (not because Jen is a willing host, but because we demand it of her), and, for a while at least, dinner and Settler's on Wednesdays. Usually doing anything at least twice will be considered in the running for a "tradition". Like the "tradition" where Christy and I (or anyone else) go to McMenamin's happy hour before a PNW Ballet show because it's so affordable to eat there and their cheeseburger goes really well with their Vanilla Nitro Stout.

So, it occurred to me the other day, when I dragged Jack out shopping for Christmas presents, that the girls and I did not get to do our usual holiday tradition--shopping at the outlet malls and making our way down to Alderwood Mall and finally to HoSoonYi (or any of that area's fine Korean dining establishments) for some soft tofu soup to warm us up.

I'm the type of person that easily gloms onto traditions (or, most like, repetitive habits), real or imagined, because of the sense of security they give me and it's a chance to find some meaning (however tiny) in our increasingly busy schedules. It's nice to know that if I was having a bad day, I could always look forward to having a drink with friends at Kate's. Similarly, the shopping trip to the outlets was just another way to spend some form of the holidays with friends before we all split up to celebrate Christmas with our respective families. Plus, there were always shopping deals to be had--hello, LeSportSac store and thank you for my $20 overnight bag!

It also occurs to me that perhaps I am only nostalgic for these traditions because Jack is such a terrible shopping partner in contrast with the girls. But those shopping trips were always a fun way to spend the day--especially since none of us had cars then and getting the Zipcar to get out of the city to go to the suburbs was a big friggin' deal.