Chinese Food for Christmas Eve

When Win and I were engaged, I visited her family for Christmas (my parents were in Saudia, unable to get exit visas).  Her mother had tried a change in the way she made chicken, going from fried to breaded and my father-in-law to be did not like it.

So, we offered to go get some KFC.  We drove what seemed to be forever and no KFC was available in Walnut Creek or the environs, but we came across a Chinese Restaurant.  We used a pay phone (remember those?) and called back, asking if Chinese food would be a good substitute.

It was, so we picked some up, came back and had dinner.  Win and I then read the Christmas story from the Bible together.  Every Christmas Eve we now have Chinese food as a family tradition, except the one time it turned out that the Chinese restaurant in Chewelah had closed, and there was none to be found, so we bought KFC (!it was open in a neighboring community!) and brought it back, along with some Chinese food from a Wal-Mart.  The joke was that we had come back with the promised KFC, only about twenty-five years late.

Makes a great tradition, one we follow wherever we are.