December 7, 2010. Enough talking about Scintilla for a moment. We're in the holiday season, almost Christmas. The Art of Manliness has an article about Holiday Date ideas. I'm well beyond looking for a date, but found the article interesting nonetheless. Most of my family's holiday traditions sort of fell by the wayside years ago. So, now is a good time to think about new traditions for my family.

Reading through the article, there were a few ideas that really struck me:

• Advent. This simple marking of time, Advent provides some religious rooting in what is otherwise a secular holiday. My father was into it, more so than my Mom. Is it a Methodist v. Baptist thing?
• Christmas Lights. We already do this. It's a fun little thing to do, drive and look at lights. After leaving Small Group a few days ago, we toured through the neighborhoods until we found some decent displays. Included was one that had the lights synchronized to music which was broadcast over a low-watt FM channel. Now my wife is pushing for us to have more lights than Scrooge.
• Decorate the Tree. Check. We whipped out an artificial number we bought at Home Depot. The day after Thanksgiving was when my mom put it up. So, that's when we put ours up. Because of the wee-est one, we put up a baby barrier that cunningly separated the tree into six sections. Each of the older kids put up a different decoration until they were spent. The next day, one of our neighbors observed we set the trend by being the first up. So, I'm not a total Scrooge.
• Holiday Baking. Sure. Why not? I make a mean banana bread. Just need to learn to make fruitcake. Stay tuned, I'll share the story of the Great Fruitcake as the Solistis approaches.
• Christmas Movie Night. This would be fun. One of my early dates with my wife was watching The Christmas Story. There are plenty of classics worth sharing.

That's all I can think of. I don't have comments working yet, so I'm not going to ask you what you think are your best traditions. I'm on Facebook and Twitter, so you can always resort to those media.