One of the more unique things about my family is our set of family traditions. Being Jewish but not all that religious, and having half my family celebrate Christmas, our response has always been to half-ass all holidays possible. We usually do about three or four nights of Hanukkah at the most, and we never even bothered to get a Christmas tree until about Christmas Eve or the day before until a change happened that would alter the fabric of holiday celebrations forever.
When I was about five, my uncle sent me a pterodactyl model. It came in pieces, but when my dad and I built it, its wingspan was about five feet across. So it was pretty good sized. In our infinite wisdom, we painted this creature yellow. It was a good time for a few days, but the pterodactyl soon lost some of its luster and was relegated to a lonely corner of our shed where it seemed doomed to spend the rest of its days. This huge, wooden, yellow pterodactyl skeleton, just chilling in the corner of a workshop, next to a pile of wood scraps. But fate had much greater things in store for the not-so-little guy.
Fast forward about eight years to December 23. I remember that my dad and I were thinking about getting a tree, but our general laziness held us back. My parents remember us going out to get a tree, but coming up short. Apparently Washington was low on evergreen trees that year. Either way, we started racking our brains for another option. Maybe it was a search of the shed or maybe the pterodactyl had been swimming in one of our subconscious for years, but somebody had the idea to hang our great yellow friend in the house and throw our presents down under him. Now, we still had boxes upon boxes of ornaments sitting in the house collecting dust, so it seemed we would be doing ourselves a disservice not to throw every nonsensical ornament I made in preschool and every random gift from a distant family member on lil buddy’s wings. At that point in my life, I was what could be described as a yard golf enthusiast. Or I just had some practice golf balls lying around. You know, the squishy plasticy foamy things. You decide which is more likely. At any rate, we drew some pupils on a couple balls and boom, our prehistoric friend had eyes.
So we stuck with the same yellow dude for a couple years, and it was awesome, but we felt that our holiday setup needed a little more pizazz. That’s when my dad pulled together some sticks, lashed them to a piece of plywood, and made a nest. The accessory, in addition to completing the look quite nicely, also had the added bonus of being a great place to store all our presents. The only thing missing from the nest was eggs. If you’re thinking along with us, you know that eggs are an almost perfect substitute for stockings. Now, getting your hands on several giant plastic eggs is a little harder than you think, so we had to get creative. The first year, we made paper mache eggs. I use the term we very liberally. I watched my dad and uncle make them. I had a bad experience with paper mache in preschool that I’ve never quite been able to recover from. I also don’t remember it. I just have a bad feeling.
The paper mache eggs actually worked pretty well. They stayed within themselves and held our stocking stuffers like champs, but it became clear the next December that we really didn’t want to remake them every year. Remember, this tradition started out of laziness. Again, we had to get creative. As many do in times of need, we put our faith in bear canisters. If you’re unfamiliar, bear canisters are what you put your food in when out in the wilderness to avoid bears doing bear-like things in and around your campsite. And stealing your food, obviously. We covered the canisters in paper and drew multicolored dots on them, because every egg I’ve ever seen is covered in huge splotches of color.
This worked almost too well. They looked good, although a little cylindrical, but their size made us overbuy stocking stuffers for a number of years. We couldn’t just buy less stuff, that would be too easy. So last year, after about five years of saying we would do it, my dad bought some giant plastic eggs off the internet. Seems like a good idea, right? Not when you add a box cutter to the equation. Several stiches on his palm later, we decided that maybe the plastic eggs weren’t such a great idea. Who knows what we’ll do next year. I’m open to suggestions.
The last piece of the puzzle, really, is the name. When we first started the tradition, we, along with our neighbors, came up with a great name that suited him perfectly. We just can’t remember it. Seriously, it’s a real problem. Honestly, we’ve probably built up a mythology about how good it was in the intervening years, but I remember it being the best name in the history of western civilization. We’ve been trying and trying for years upon years to remember our perfect name, but the brain is a fickle mistress. Or something. That’s a weird metaphor. We’ve brainstormed for hours and workshopped for days, trying to locate the name in the far recesses of our brains, or at least find a suitable substitute. We still haven’t found one. Life is a constant struggle. Don’t worry, though. The other pterodactyl’s name is much easier to remember.
When I went to college and got my own place, I clearly had to continue this tradition myself. About a year and a half ago, I decided the time was finally right to invest in my own skeletal flying creature. The internet really is a great place. It took me only minutes of searching before I found a new creature to join the family. The only question was how to paint it. As much as I like the yellow, I wanted my guy to be unique; part of the same family, but with his own personality and character. So I went on a quest to find the perfect color scheme (actually, I went to Home Depot). It turned out that they just happened to sell paint in Seahawks colors. The opportunity was too good to pass up. I bought some of that blue and green paint and set to work…about eight months later. I was busy at the time, ok?
Because my buddy was being painted Seahawks colors, he needed a Seahawks themed name. I quite obviously had to get a silent “p” in there, because pterodactyl. With the meat of them name, I paid homage to another quirky yet great mainstay of a strong, cohesive unit: Marshawn Lynch. Due to Shawn’s propensity for munching Skittles on the sideline, I named my holiday mascot Pskittles. I told you it was memorable. He talks about as much as Marshawn, but unfortunately can’t be all about that action, boss. He just hangs from the ceiling.
I did stick him in prime viewing position of our TV, so Pskittles got to watch his namesake rumble through tacklers all season and through the playoffs. He witnessed the incredible comeback of the NFC Championship game from his perch above our couch. Fortunately, we watched the Super Bowl somewhere else, so he didn’t have to watch that. But he continues to hold strong, a Seattle outpost carrying on the great legacy of the OT (Original Pterodactyl).
If I could leave you with anything from this piece, assuming you’ve made it this far, it’s start your own goofy traditions. Or, if you don’t want to do that, copy ours. You can buy your very own wooden pterodactyl model at dinosaurcorporation.com/pteranodonkit.html. Decorate it so it’s Game of Thrones themed. Or Middle Earth themed. You might want to make sure it’s female, too. Our current representatives are a little testosteroney. Anyway, everyone has their weird family traditions, and I’m delighted I could share mine with you. My dream is that, someday, every house in America hangs a pterodactyl for the holidays. But I’ll settle for like ten people.