Christmas Day Dim Sum

Christmas Day Dim Sum '05
Originally uploaded by oldforest.

A family tradition revived.

Unlike myself, Heather enjoys the holidays. She has happy memories to share and family traditions to continue. At least as an adult, for me, the holidays have been something to merely survive and get through. Other than going out for Dim Sum, there are no family traditions for me to continue or latch on to. Shortly after my parents divorced, going out to Dim Sum became what my mother and I did, not just for Christmas, but on all holidays -- and before going and judging it as particularly odd, I'll point out that Oriental East, the restaurant in Silver Spring, where we would go, actually opens half-an-hour earlier on holidays to accommadate the crowds of like-minded(mostly Chinese) folks.

In the recent years(after my mother's passing), I hadn't consistently been able to sustain the tradition -- but, after Lily's birth, it became that much more important to me to revive the tradition for good. It felt like a nice way to remember my mother. Unfortunately, last year my sister-in-law, thawarted the attempt to begin the revival(and then, to add insult to injury, she disrespected my mother's memory -- and to-date hasn't apologized).

So, it would not be an exaggeration to say, that I had been looking forward to this day for more than a year...