Another Christmas Tradition

I thought this tradition started fairly recently when Carolyn and I were spending Christmas alone for the first time in our lives.  It just didn't seem worth going to all the effort to prepare an all out big Christmas dinner.  So we planned on grabbing a quick meal at Jack in the Box or Taco Bell.

As we drove to our favorite Jack or TB we noticed that no other fast food places were open and got the ominous feeling that perhaps Jack in the Box and Taco Bell wouldn't be either.  Right on.  We opened the filters to include all fast food places and then all restaurants.  Surely Denny's would be  open, wouldn't it?  Nope.  Of course the grocery stores with their deli counters hadn't even opened because of Christmas.  Now it was getting to be panic time.

Then in the waning daylight (it was just past 3:00 now) we saw a restaurant with a car parked in front.  There appeared to be lights on in the place.  We also noticed that it had a Chinese name.  As we hopefully opened the front door it appeared that the propriotor was locking up for the day.  "Are you open?" we called out.  "Yes!" came the reply in heavy accented tones.  A few more unintelligible syllables and a waitress appeared to seat us and take our order.  The propriotor was now the cook.

As I recall it wasn't an outstanding meal but we were hungry enough to be grateful for anything.  Thus was born, for us at least, the tradition of eating out  at a Chinese restaurant for Christmas.  It was a necessity to begin with.  This year on our way to our favorite Chinese buffet restaurant, we noticed that Denny's was open this year as was Chevy's, Bucco de  Beppo, and assorted fast food places.