If you needed any further proof of my family’s quirkiness, don’t worry, you’re about to get a truckload.
Groundhog Day, as I’m sure you know, is a holiday surrounding the legend that if a groundhog sees its shadow on the 2nd of February, there will be six more weeks of winter. No shadow: early spring. Utter myth, but it’s a nice little story for elementary school teachers to tell the first week of February.
Years ago, Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell starred in an adorable little romcom named after this holiday. The premise of the film is that Bill Murray’s character, Phil, is a total jerk until he finds himself reliving the same day—Groundhog Day—over and over again until he gets an attitude adjustment. Andie MacDowell plays the angelic female figure he reforms for. Hilarity ensues.
Being a Bill Murray film, it’s extremely quotable. Since our family uses movies quotes as our primary means of communication, we latched onto this film and can quote it backwards and forwards. The need to watch it on a yearly basis is next to zero, since we can recite the sucker backwards and forwards. But nothing is better than a shared laugh, so we watch it over every year anyway. Every year, at or near the actual day, we watch the movie and eat junk food. It’s tradition.
This year, as you already know, February 2nd fell on a Saturday. Saturdays are the only days I can come home during the semester. This only meant one thing: I would be coming home on Groundhog Day, and the festivities would commence.
This year we may or may not have gone a little overboard. We adapted quotes from the movie into elements of the meal. For example:
“Don’t mess with me, Pork-chop.” We had pork-chops.
“Sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist, please.” “[To bartender] The same. [To Phil] That’s my favorite drink!” We don’t drink in our family (nor do we endorse the habit), but we did grab some sparkling cider. It was yummy.
There’s a moment in the movie after Phil discovers he can do whatever he wants without having to face the consequences (the advantage of reliving the same day over and over) where he goes to a diner and orders all the pastries they offer. His table is piled with cakes, pies, waffles, doughnuts, ice cream, etc. The most memorable part of this scene is when he shoves a whole slice of cake into his mouth and chews, slowly. In honor of this shot, we bought doughnuts.
The main course this evening was burgers made from ground pork. Ground. Hog. Groundhog. Groundhog burgers. Yup. They were delicious.
Needless to say, we are stuffed and we laughed altogether too much over a silly movie we’ve seen every year for who knows how many years. But we had fun. Together. And after all, that’s the really important thing.
To top it all off, it snowed today. Even though the groundhog’s forecast called for an early spring, we got a blast of flurries this afternoon that were truly smile-worthy. All in all, this day couldn’t have gotten any better.
Oh, no! Now the whole blogosphere knows how weird we are! ACKKKKKK!
I laughed and laughed at this! I can’t point any fingers, we tend to communicate via lines from the Star Wars movies.
“~Ned Ryerson?
Gotta love fun family traditions!!
~BING!”
I’ve been reading and enjoying your blog in silence for a little while now, but this post was just too much fun to pass up!