Do you have any zombie holiday traditions?
I don't mean dressing up as an undead Santa who tumbles insensate down the chimney and staggers around moaning "Braaains! — and cookies with milk, if you have them."
I'm talking about things you do because it's tradition, and you can't remember why.
Example: Every year I plug a bubble-lamp into a kitchen electrical socket. The plastic base is red and green, and it has a bear wearing a Santa cap, so it is festive. If it was orange and pink and had a panda wearing a fedora, and I plugged it in the first of June and said, " 'Tis the season!" people would think I had lost my wits, but this combination of colors and ursinity is immediately familiar. The power of culture.
Every time I plug it in, I think: This is what will burn down the house. I will look at the smoking ruins, covered in a caul of ice, and moan, "I just had to have a bubble lamp, didn't I? Because it was Christmas."
A zombie tradition, in other words.
There are others. We have some seasonal throw pillows I don't like, but being a guy, I think the amount of decorative pillows in the world could be reduced by 87% without ruining anyone's day. The pillows in question have a picture of a French horn bedecked with holly, which is festive. Perhaps, but no one puts out pillows in July that have a picture of a bassoon blowing in two like a firecracker. We just accept certain kinds of iconography and don't think twice.
Must we put out these pillows whose sole job is to be set aside when someone wants to sit down? We must.