Back in middle school, like most people my age, I worked very hard to listen to the right music and attempt to dress in the right way to deliver the right message about myself to my peers. Ironically, for me that meant being careful not to do things that were already trendy. If I was going to participate in a trend, I had to be an early adopter, or else I couldn’t get involved at all. I guess it was just part of my weird social moral code.

Well, sometime around early high school I realized that it was a lot of work. And, it sometimes meant missing out on stuff that was cool, or convenient or just plain fun. I thought to myself, “If I think something is cool, or fun, or convenient, why shouldn’t I enjoy it myself?” My decision making, up until that point, started to look pretty silly. I couldn’t come up with a rational excuse to continue that way and I came to the conclusion that ”Screw it” just made the most sense.

So that’s what I did. I said, screw it and committed myself to do what I wanted to do—obviously with some limitations.

After that, the first thing I went and did was buy a carabineer. You know, the little climbing clips people use to attach their keys to the belt loops on their jeans. At the time it was trendy. For a long time I’d been frustrated putting my keys in my pocket, but refused to use this little clip because I didn’t want to be the guy jumping on the trend.

Fast foreword seven years and I’m still using the same clip to carry my keys around. That is until yesterday when it broke. All of a sudden, the significance of that carabineer came rushing back to me and I realized that I’d been using the same clip for a long time and it was an important landmark in making me who I am today, ideologically speaking.

So, now I’ve gotten a new clip and the old one has made it into the memory-box hall of fame. And I post this today in memoriam of my first deliberate and conscious act of social rebellion by allowing myself to jump on an obvious trend. RIP my fist carabineer. Your memory will not be forgotten.

Christians do a lot of things that I think are strange. Heck, I guess I do a lot of things I think are strange too. But there are few things I find particularly silly. The one I mention today, I mention only because it’s come up in conversation a few times recently and ever since I became a Christian, I can’t help but find myself continually dumbfounded by this unofficial tradition.

Christian Bachelor Parties

Maybe it’s just where I live, I don’t know, but the Christian take on the tradition of bachelor parties (sometimes going  by a different name) is possibly one of the stupidest Christianized traditions that I know of. I for one would be really, really upset if my closest friends decided to throw me one of these—in fact, if any of you are reading this, make a note of it.

Traditionally bachelor parties focus on all the exciting things the bachelor is forever going to have to give up after his wedding day. Boozing, strippers, wild late-night antics, etc, etc. Of course, I wouldn’t care for one of these either. But the underlying point is an event focused on showing the groom a really good time.

Christian bachelor parties are, well, pretty much exactly the opposite. Somehow the bachelor usually ends up naked, humiliated and to compound that, he’s usually left stranded somewhere. I vividly remember the playfully violent use of wet pool noodles from a bachelor party some years ago.

This is something I simply cannot understand. What the heck? The rest of the time we’re all about love and encouragement and building each other up (or at least we’re supposed to be), but when a brother in Christ is taking, literally, one of the biggest steps of his life, we express our endearment with nudity and humiliation? Even if it is all in jest, why is that our choice of jest?

This is something I can’t wrap my mind around and I’m not going to keep trying. So, if you want to keep your clothes on for your bachelor party, I’d pick your best man very carefully; I know I will.

Christmas Eve and Christmas are two dates out of the year where the Petruzzo family gets together for some serious tradition. Which frankly, is kind of weird. Most other times there’s really not too much tradition involved in my family. But tonight and tomorrow night are among the exceptions.

Tonight, Christmas Eve, we share a simple dinner passed down through my father’s family. It came from the tradition of meat abstinence before Christmas. Originally, my father’s family would have plain olive oil pasta and seven kinds of seafood (I can’t say for certain what they were, although I know eel was in there somewhere). After my oldest sister was born the meal became simpler; only green salad, olive oil and bread crumb pasta, and shrimp. Over the years the simple Christmas Eve meal elaborated itself in other ways. Today we usually share the meal with a small army of people who enjoy a few hours of each other’s company and the free beer.

Tomorrow will be a smaller affair, although no less tradition involved. Joining us will be our family’s closer friends. We’ll eat homemade cheese ravioli with my grandmother’s homemade meat sauce, escarole soup and a salad dressed with my father’s recipe. In our family, it is this meal that is the most coveted. We look foreword to eating the ravioli all year long and when it finally comes we usually stuff ourselves stupid.

Of course, in the end it’s always the conversations and the relationships that are remembered and it’s the tradition we hold that they ride in and out on every year. So, I guess tonight, more than anything, I would simply like to thank God for a season in the year that gives families reasons to gather around each other. Thank you Jesus.