The past few years I’ve tried to create a new traditions for our family– having “Springfield Style” Cashew Chicken our Christmas Eve dinner meal. I have to admit I stole this from my childhood neighbors, The Muetzels, but good traditions come from good people. The challenge for me of course is that we can’t just go out and buy Springfield Style– Toto, we’re not in Springfield anymore. So each year we’ve made it ourselves using the most accurate recipe Lyn and I have found. I think we’ve blogged about it before so I won’t go into details of the recipe.

This being my first christmas as an almost vegetarian I also made Springfield Style with crispy fried tofu– still good people, I swear!

Once the crab rangoon and fried goodness were gone, we broke out our only long-term, unique-ish Christmas tradition… The Christmas Game.

I can’t even remember when we got The Christmas Game it’s been in our family for so long. I think it came from Skaggs AKA Osco AKA CVS. The game, like Christmas, is all about collecting gifts and ridiculous moments of chance that are very holiday specific and sort of realistic when you think about it. We love it, even dad, though he grouses sometimes about playing.

We have friends who are honorary family members and Jessica (Lynley’s best friend) has been an honorary Farris the longest. As many of you know, she and Lyn have been best friends since they were 3, so Jess basically grew up with The Christmas Game too.

During the game, there are Santa cards that help you out, Scrooge cards that are a humbug because something bad most likely will happen and reindeer cards (which are my favorite) where you have to roll the dice to find out if something good or bad is coming your way.

We had to play in pairs which is not the normal way of playing and I think how people got paired up might not have the best mix for a “friendly” game…but it’s the holidays, a time when anything goes! Let me ask you this, have years of being friends made Lynley and Jess competative…you decide.

And the winners were….

Cheers to Springfield Style and the Christmas Game– long may you be a Farris Family tradition!