Traditions.

My family has always been big on traditions.  At least my mom is.  I honestly never truly appreciated their value until recently.  Still, there were sometimes when I was as tradition compliant as possible.

In 2005 I took DJ to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas Tree.  It had been a pretty rough year for us, especially considering the time I had to spend away during September and October of that year.  As a parent, you have certain ideas about what a traditional moment like this should be like.  Part daydream, part fantasy, and based on past experiences you have certain expectations of the day.

So that Sunday morning we had french toast for breakfast, courtesy of grandma, got bundled up, and headed to the subway station.  DJ loved trains… and planes… but he got to ride on the train this day and that was a big deal.  Watching his cheeks flutter with the rush of the wind as the train rolled into the station, I knew it was going to be a good day.

Coming out of the subway we were met with a nice brisk cold wind.  The weather was quite cold, but we were pretty well bundled up.  When we got to Rockefeller Center, we took some time wandering through the plaza looking at the window displays before coming to the big attraction itself.  There were oohs and aahs… and exclamation at the seeming miracle of the hot dog street vendors.

Once we got to the big attraction itself… well there was alot of oohs and aahs about that too!  Unfortunately, Rockefeller Center isn’t entirely kid friendly with all the bustling adults around… so for awhile I had to pick DJ up so he could get a better view.  Standing off to the side was when I noticed the photographer.  That was one of the serious drawbacks about when we went to go do things… we rarely got pictures together.  The photographer was employed by NBC, would take your picture by the tree, and then you could order prints online.  I saw this as a win-win!  So we went to get our photo taken.

75 minutes later I had the slip in my hand with a number to order the prints.

75 minutes.

In the cold.

I admit, I’m not the brightest bulb, so being half frozen when the photo was taken is one of those memories I’m sure would have been exaggerated later on in life… kinda like when my mother whipped my hands for lighting a firecracker.

After that I had decided that we would go to my favorite mid-town restaurant… Jeckyll & Hyde‘s.  Once again, I’m not the brightest bulb, and didn’t pay attention to the continued infatuation with hot dog vendors on the walk up 6th Avenue.  Once actually at the restaurant… well we were there for 5 minutes.  Taking a 4.9 year old to Jeckyll & Hyde‘s isn’t the brightest idea.

At this point, the day in my mind hadn’t gone the way it was supposed to.  Inside I was a bit hurt that it wasn’t as good a day as I had hoped, and so we went straight to the subway and headed back to Queens.  I ignored the pointing finger to the hot dog vendor across 6th Avenue, and instead opted for the safety of a McDonald’s chicken nuggets happy meal.  My ignorance in his enjoyment of the simple things… my ignorance in remembering what it was like to be 4.9 years old… haunts me to this day in hindsight.  The rest of the weekend was spent playing Lego Star Wars, watching Hellboy (because that is the greatest love story ever told), and just relaxing with each other.

During the week I was able to look at that photo… a photo of a memory that in my mind at the time wasn’t the greatest memory I would make… but I ordered prints anyway.  Of course, for Christmas I gave DJ an 8X10 print of the photo… and he was ecstatic!  “It’s me and daddy!” he would tell anyone who listened that night.  Of course, he was ecstatic about pretty much everything he got that year… and to be honest I was pretty sure the picture wouldn’t last through a day before finding itself in a heap somewhere because I didn’t think it was really that good of day… having been half-frozen and all.

A year and a half later I climbed into the lower bunk that he called his bed… and I laid on my back where he had the night before but would never lay in again… and there on the bottom of the top bunk was that 8X10 picture staring right back at me.

It was him.

And his daddy.

And it really was a good day.