Cool Down

It's been blazing hot in the east in case any of you non-easterners have noticed, and I was happy to escape to the Pacific Northwest for a week. The 4th of July tends to be when the majority of my extended family gets together, and so many things about this holiday week have become tradition. But the funny thing about family, or maybe it's just mine, is that so many of these traditions are small, insignificant, and meaningless to everyone else. Which became clear to me as I was trying to explain them to M (the boy).

TJN: We love playing this really awesome dice game.
M: What's the game?
TJN: Well, um, you get ones....and fives....

Or this one:

TJN: You should have seen it, it was the funniest thing ever. My cousins drove away in this piece of crap car that wouldn't even stay started for thirty seconds. Only a crazy person would attempt to drive to another state in such a vehicle, but if you know them at all, it's just hilarious. It's just the sort of thing they love doing. I mean, if you even knew how many times those boys have probably been stranded somewhere or had to just pull off the side of the road and find somewhere to stay. So really there's no one I'd feel better about in a piece of crap car.
M:

Not that I really expected him to burst out laughing. It was just so classically them, and it made me smile. Although it was relatively hard to get that across. No matter. Traditions are traditions, and whether or not the activities themselves are all that exciting, the thing I love is that the people in my family want to do them anyway.