The Accidental Tradition Continues

We were a little late on the Marvel movie scene.  The Bru Crew did not express interest in the Marvel movies until the first Avengers movie came out.  Bru Crew Dad and I did not go see any of the Iron Man movies or Hulk.  We did watch the first Captain America movie, and the first Thor movie, but only on DVD.  We saw Avengers in theaters as part of my Mother's Day gift in May 2012.  I was a little surprised that was the plan, but I went with it, and we enjoyed the movie.

Somewhere in the process of watching Marvel movies, and then Star Wars movies, in theaters, my kids wanted to watch them as soon as possible, which meant the Friday they were released.  Some Fridays, that worked; many of those Fridays were already booked.  The May Marvel releases were always the night of our co-op concert, and the December Star Wars releases were always the weekend we celebrate Christmas with my family at my sister's house. We discovered that they were not advertised as such, but often released the Thursday night before.  It quickly became our tradition to see the movies on the Thursday of their release, which is the first day they are available in theaters.  We surprised the kids with IMAX tickets to see Rogue One in December of last year.

Standing at the bus stop with Ms. Quality Time and Tenderheart yesterday, Ms. QT reminded me that Thor: Ragnarok opens this weekend, and wanted to know if we were going last night.  I looked into it, and considered it.  Then, Little Man's soccer practice was canceled, Ms. Quality Time's Scholar's Bowl match was a single instead of a double, and I thought we could make it work.  Unfortunately, there was an event planned for the marching band after practice, that was mentioned a month ago, but not again, and Tenderheart had to miss it to go with us.  I felt a little badly about that because she would have enjoyed it, but all the memos said 4-6, and nothing else.  We went to the 7:00 showing at our local theater.  I made a few of my hard working soccer friends mad jealous because we have a tournament this weekend that they are hard at work on, but family comes before soccer.  My children do not get everything they want.  I do not have the desire or money to buy all the latest and greatest gadgets and clothing trends (not to say that it is wrong to do that for your children if you can and want to).  We strive to breed contentment into our children.  They ask for very few things.  Christmas lists are hard because they get what they need, and do not want much.  This, however, is important to my children.  Most of our traditions are intentional: ice cream for dinner one night when a parent is out of town for a week, pancakes for lunch on Sunday after church, reading the Christmas story from the Bible before we open gifts, praying before we eat or travel, praying when we see a wreck or an ambulance, just to name a few, but this one was not intentional.  However, in a world where my kids want to go do something as a family, I am glad to be able to say yes.  And so, our accidental tradition continued, and we went and watched Thor: Ragnarok last night as a family.  I won't give any spoilers, but we enjoyed it thoroughly, and I am sure that the DVD of it will be on someone's Christmas or birthday list next year.  :)