The Christmas holiday simply would not be complete without a family trip to the bowling alley. You heard me. Bowling.

I remember one Christmas party evening during my freshman year at Oklahoma State in which my Bible study leader asked us to go around and share one special Christmas family tradition, preferably unique. I was terrified for it to be my turn because I couldn’t think of one special thing unique to my family that we did every single year. I racked my brain and got more and more nervous as the verbal game of hot potato started getting closer to me (this was a co-ed party and I had practically zero social skills when it came to relating to boys when I was 18… that’s another blog post).

Just as I was the next one to go, it finally dawned on me – we did have a unique tradition that, to the best of my knowledge, nobody else I knew enjoyed. The family Christmas bowling game. I think this started on one of the years my mom had to work the afternoon/evening shift at AT&T on Christmas day, and my sister, dad, grandpa, and grandma were sitting around twiddling our thumbs. Someone threw out the suggestion that we go bowling, and thus the birth of the tradition. We did this for the rest of the years I lived at home and probably the first couple after we got married, back when we still traveled home for Christmas every year.

But it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to convince Craig it would be a great tradition to pass on to our own family. This year I didn’t have to – his family did it for me.

On Saturday, the sixteen of us (8 adults, 8 children between the ages of 2 and 7) loaded up the vans and headed to the Pittsfield bowling alley. This was an experience unlike any of my previous Christmas bowling memories, for this was a “do-it-yourself” bowling alley. By “do-it-yourself” I mean this:

– We had to dig our own bowling shoes out of the mountain piled up on top of the counter.
– When the balls kept getting stuck in the machine that’s supposed to push them back up to the place you pick them up when it’s your turn (I’m sure there’s a name for that machine, but my white trashness does have a line), we had to pry open the lid covering the hole in the floor with a knife and retrieve the ball ourselves.
– Knowing how to keep score manually, which I did as none of the oversized terminals (which Craig said looked like they were swiped from the set of the first Star Trek movie) worked.
Yes, it’s obvious I’m a dying breed, especially when I was the only one of the whole Dunham gang who knew how to keep score with a piece of paper and a pencil. This momma can bowl.
I’m also proud to say that *my man* won the game, coming in with a bubba-respectable 178 (I didn’t do nearly as well, scoring only a 112). At the end of the game and taking note of our scores, Craig’s youngest sister asked if we bowled regularly. For fun. 🙂

Other highlights included the two disco balls (real ones) spinning over the darkened and empty lanes (we had the place to ourselves), 5 songs for $1 on the jukebox, and Millie pushing the reset button on me after I’d already thrown my ball (boy, was that a loud crash!)

We leave in the morning for the Kansas City area to spend a couple of days with my side of the family. Craig is dreading the idea of a second round of family fun at the bowling alley. I say,
“Scratch Singles, anyone?”