Changing Transmissions

I went to Weight Watchers on Sunday after about a 6 week hiatus (HIGH-ate-us. Get it?). One Sunday I refused to go to the meeting.

I sat in the trendy little coffee shop next door watching my fellow weight-watching meeting attendees melting away by the week, coming and going, in and out of the coffee shop while I sat, warming my hands by the fake electric fireplace, drinking nonfat pumpkin-spiced lattes, and assorted winter-spiced creations and other (almost pre-pre) seasonal faire. (Not to interrupt the flow of this post but whoever thought of putting pumpkin in coffee to begin with or peanut butter, I mean, come on!? I'm going to invent Green Bean coffee. Similar to pumpkin, yams come in a can and they're squishy. Can we put yams in coffee?) I recently received a postcard from the WW leader saying how much she missed me. Ahhh. To escape further humiliation from my post(man)person, I was forced to go back to the Sunday morning WW meeting.

When I weighed in, I had gained 2 pounds though in all fairness, I had forgotten to remove my iPOD. Those things weigh a ton!

While in my coffee shop mode, when asked, I told one WW guy meeting attendee who's lost the equivalent of two other humans (because he actually attends meetings) that I was not coming back to WW until they splurged on a fake fireplace. But those WW folks are tight with the cash. They have metal chairs. If they got a fake fireplace, the metal might be too hot to sit on. People might get too comfy and want to stay with WW forever -- obviously my plan.

The subject of the yesterday's meeting was holidays and changing traditions. I like the idea of changing traditions around holidays mostly because I've been forced into it so often. Someone dies, you change a tradition. Someone is in chemo, you change tradition. Someone dumps you, chg trad. Car transmission going out, change tradition. No money, C.T.

Incorporating the phrase "changing tradition" sounds like a person is actually making a choice rather than saying a person was forced into something. I'd much rather make a choice or at least pretend I am the person making the choice. Changing traditions is another way of saying that I'm going with the flow which I'm learning to do more and more. I'm not directing any events. I'm not arranging the festivities. I'm riding the wave on my own personal holiday surfboard of choice. Rather than stick with my traditional holiday dogma, I'm chillin, waiting to see what someone else has planned and praying to Gah, the Grand Pubah, the Big Juju or the Universe - that whoever *they* is, that *They* do not forget to invite me to whatever *they* plan.

And as I write that all out, this isn't just changing tradition for me, this is what guys do at the holidays, right? They don't plan shit. They just sit back and wait to be invited. They ride their personal surfboard of choice throughout the holidays. Guys don't have traditional holiday dogma. My friend, PK, recently said I was more like a guy. (that's a different post).

Because tradition changing is a subject near and dear to my heart when the weight watcher leader asked us to tell the group, in one word what reminds us of holidays, we shouted out our one word holiday reminders such as booze, food, cookies, stuffing, drunktank (my contribution). Most weight watchers attendees had a difficult time sticking to one word much like sticking to one meal or one cookie or one pie. Statements about the holidays and what they meant quickly turned into three words, then whole sentences, then paragraphs, and tomes of what the holidays meant. It turned into WW mayhem. I was nauseated listening to the cheesy, good-natured holiday-themed camaraderie. I tried to elbow the woman sitting next to me who had lost so much weight in the last year, if my elbow had landed, she would have been hospitalized.

People mentioned their own traditions that had changed over the years. "We get up early and take a family walk!" "We go to the shelter and feed the homeless." "We get all our money together and support one family." "We mow our neighbor's lawn." "We skip buying the tree, and the presents, sitting around a late afternoon fire, singing carols, holding hands, turning to one another and smiling." "We decided instead of gifts at Kwanza, we'd collect coats for the homeless." "We take one slice of turkey and divide it among the 12 of us, saying grace 100 times - then we run a 10k!" "We don't give out gold foil coins when singing the דרײדל song, we hug one another instead." "We sing carols for all our neighbors while carrying the American flag around our block 100 times!"

Yay us!

When the WW leader said "change traditions" she wanted one word and these people were cheating as usual, taking more than their allotment which is really the only reason they attend Weight Watchers meetings to begin with. These people simply do not know when to stop!

But then, you know that I am all about rules. My own.

After the meeting I thought that sitting in front of that fake fireplace for 6 weeks was about as sincere as listening to that group of chubby fibbers talk about their changing holiday traditions.

Once again I have to change traditions this year. Got any *real* ideas you can offer? Should I skip everything? Should I focus on another family, a child, adopt a pet or tape a video of my singing my favorite holiday songs and put it on my blog? (that idea is as fake as that fireplace and a room full of WW). In one word, what says "holiday" to you? And in one sentence, paragraph or tome, how would you change a tradition if someone dumped you and your transmission is going out?