An Insulting Tradition

My family often shows love by teasing. And animosity, come to think of it. It's a fine line.

My older sister and I used to play a game on bus rides to school by telling each other "This is what you sound like" or "This is what you look like" and then acting completely absurd. 

My dad would routinely call us dunderheads and pick us up by our heads. They're actually some of my favorite memories.

Side Note: We moved to Alaska about 10 months after we got married. A couple months after we settled in, we were having dinner with his parents and his dad teased me. I clearly remember thinking "Aw, he loves me, he really loves me!"

When Matt and I first got engaged, it always perplexed me how he reacted to my sarcasm. He went mad with joy if I insulted him, like a gamboling puppy. There were times when I wondered if he had some serious issues. Then we got married and I settled in to the small NY town he grew up in. All the women around him were sweet and kind and fawned over their young youth pastor. 

"Matt, you're so funny"  "Matt, you're such a nice guy" "Matt, you're the epitome of everything that's wonderful in this world."

Stuff like that. What he really needed was some loving insults. Needless to say, we're pretty happily married.

I always bug Matt about starting traditions. Traditions for holidays and birthdays like funny hats or cupcakes for breakfast. I once mentioned making homemade marshmallows for Christmas and he teased me so much that nary a mallow was ever made. Last week I was wasting precious time on Pinterest and found an article on couples Christmas traditions. Images of romantic and sweet activities danced in my hand. Matt and I in front of the fire, wearing chunky turtleneck sweaters, intertwining our steaming mugs of hot chocolate and staring soulfully into each other's eyes...

I bounced into the kitchen and start telling him about this article. 

He gets this look on his face. He is getting ready to mock me. Hands aflutter, voice falsetto. He says:

"We could make snowflakes! Every year we'll cut out a special snowflake and decorate it with glitter. Then we'll put them into a scrapbook and we'll look at it all the time and say "Oh, here's the snowflake from 2016! Aw, remember that?" And then we can take our snowflakes outside and dance and recite Christmas poems to each other."

To which I say "Fine we won't do anything at all. Ever. And I'm making this into a blog post." Which is now my insult of choice.