Super Bowl traditions

Thank you!  You clicked on my blog despite my annoying plea!  :0  I haven’t written a blog since the fall so I just felt the need to seem a bit desperate for readers; ’cause I am.   It’s January and I have the ‘whim whams’ as Nan always called them.  Time for some productivity despite the howling winds blowing outside my window.  Time to write!  And then it’s time to clean my house.  No, I didn’t save the best for last today.  Ugh, I am dreading that part of my day.  Anywho…

Super Bowl.  Let me just start out by saying that I do not know football.  I do not pretend to know football.  I do not even enjoy it all that much.  The thing that I do enjoy is the tradition surrounding the biggest football game of the year.

Tradition.  That’s a standard word in our family.  We have Chilson traditions and we have Paulus traditions.  Someday we’ll have other family traditions too.  And by tradition I mean, anything that we’ve done even once as a family and we really liked and so now the kids (and adults) expect it every year and if we don’t do it, it’s really quite disappointing and we’ll never forget to do it again because it’s easier just to do it than to look at the sad little faces surrounding us and answer all the questions as to ‘why’ we aren’t doing it again this year.  Yes, mom, I know that was a horribly grammatically incorrectly worded sentence…so is this one.  🙂  The whim whams make you do crazy things sometimes.  Even as crazy as using incorrect grammar.

I digress.

Tradition.  We love it.  We own it.  We change it from time to time.  But Super Bowl Sunday always, ALWAYS, has one thing for us.  B-I-N-G-O!

So BINGO is a pretty common game.  You’d say most people know how to play it, right?  Right.  It’s a game you can play with tots and a game that teenagers think is still cool as long as you have the right prizes.  It’s a game that we adults love too, with prizes, right or wrong!  It’s a game that my in-laws do up right!

On Super Bowl Sunday, when we walk in to my mother and father-in-law’s home, we will smell wonderful ribs cooking.  We will ooh and ahh over the kitchen island filled with decadent and savory dips to go with crunchy chips.  But soon after, sometimes even before we start noticing these delights, we look to the left of the food table to another table and see them- The BINGO prizes.

Now, I’ve never been shopping for these coveted prizes, but I’m picturing it as a great deal of fun.  My father-in-law and mother-in-law with a shopping cart at the dollar tree or the grocery store or wherever their hearts may take them this particular time, are smiling.  They’re looking for some fun.  Some fun stuff for the family.  What will make everyone smile this year?  What will get a laugh?  What will the kids like?  How many of these should we get?  I can picture it clearly.  The giant tubs of cheese curls, peanut butter, hot cocoa mix, olives (we could do without those, thank you), candy and mac ‘n cheese come to mind.  Yes, we Pauluses do love food.  Some of us have better taste than others (you olive lovers come to mind and you know who you are, Matt and Dan!).   At one time, when the kids were smaller, we had lots of fuzzy stuffed animals.  There are always goofy trinkets along with the food.  There are always useful items too…dish sponges come to mind!  They’re usually some of the last choices on the table, but they’re also snapped up when the time is right!  Some things are obviously for a certain someone but many times end up going home with someone unexpected.  We’re ruthless that way!

It must be a great time to shop for these prizes.  I know that it’s a great time to sit around the dining table, munch on snacks, listen to my father in law call the bingo numbers and anticipate the first, second, third, fourth…fifteenth shout of ‘BINGO!’  Everyone gets prizes, not because we’re fair that way, but because we play and play and play.

Determination and perseverence run high in this family and we help each other achieve along the way.  It may be a BINGO game, but it’s also a tradition.  And tradition is what we’re all about whether it’s a simple game or just life in general.  Neither is easy unless you have your family’s support.  That’s another thing that we ALWAYS have.

So happy Super Bowl to you; may you start your own traditions that bring you closer together as a family.

Feel free to adopt our traditions…maybe you’ll run into my in-laws while they’re shopping for prizes.  I’m sure you’ll have fun.