It was a typical Christmas here at the Roe house.  We opened gifts, I made my special french toast and we hung out until about noon (well, actually my daughter was gracious enough to take a run with me in the morning … thanks hon!).  After my kids left to hang with their Dad, it was time for the Jewish part of the program.

My father and I traditionally go to a movie and Chinese on Christmas.  I used to think this was just a Jewish thing … that everyone else stayed home, ate, played cards, ate and watched TV.  Clearly, based on our experience yesterday, Jews are not the only ones escaping on Christmas!

The line at the movie theatre (chose the Cohen bros. movie — figured that was fitting) was 1/4 a block long!  While we were freezing in line, I began to look at the people around me?  Were they Jewish?  I didn’t think so.  It was only 2:00.  Why weren’t they in the middle of a game of Monopoly?  Eating their second meal?  Instead, the theatre was packed with an assortment of people and we were shoved into the last few seats in the theatre!

We took a break mid-day and decided to meet up for Chinese food around 6:30.  Sounded reasonable.  NOT.  The place was packed! Many people of Asian descent, (ok, makes sense), some Jews and a lot of non-Jews.  What’s happening??? We were there two hours from start to finish.

We did meet an interesting 85-year-old guy, who could barely speak english.  He was able to tell us Happy New Year and to let us know that his wife was 83, that he had 19 children and over 20 grandchildren!  Many of them were there having dinner with him (hence, the reason our food took so unbelievably long!).  He seemed excited to have everyone there and to be celebrating the event.  Gosh, hard to complain about our delay after seeing the joy on his face.

I think next year we should do the non-Jewish thing and stay home, make a ham, open gifts and play Monopoly.  Maybe the Christians want a turn at our holiday fun!!  We could even trade-off even and odd years. That way, we never have to wait too long for our tickets or our fantastically fresh and hot Chinese food.  Win-win!

Hope you have a not-too-groggy day back at work!