Embracing the Almond

Every Christmas morning, my family eats oatmeal for breakfast -- not ordinary oatmeal, but "lucky" oatmeal. Buried inside the pot is a single almond. Working alone in the kitchen, I spoon the steamy cereal into bowls, one bowl for every member of the family, an equal heap in each. Then, everyone troops in, chooses a bowl, and sits down to eat. That's when the suspense begins. The person who finds the almond in his or her bowl will be blessed with luck all year, or so we say.

We've played find-the-almond every Christmas for as long as I can remember, ever since our kids were little. My wife and I shamelessly stole the ritual from a wonderfully whimsical children's book, Santa Claus and His Elves by Mauri Kunnas, now long out of print. (In the book, Santa and his elves fortify themselves with oatmeal with a hidden almond back at the North Pole after a long night of Christmas eve deliveries.) As young parents, we wanted to establish our own family traditions and add an extra dollop of magic to Christmas for our kids.  Since then, I've learned that the ritual seems to have Scandinavian roots. In some Norwegian or Swedish or Danish families, the almond-finder gets a marzipan pig or other special treat. And in others, everybody gets an almond in their bowls. This version sounds to me like Little League baseball, where even the losers get a trophy.

For the last couple of Christmas mornings, we've invited our good friends and neighbors, Tim and Denise and their two children, to share the almond tradition with us. We cook a huge pot of oatmeal, set the table with bananas, dried fruit, brown sugar, maple syrup, and other mix-ins, and all eight of us sit down to eat. Of course, our friends' attendance effectively doubles the odds that someone from my family will get the almond.  But that's OK. What decent friend wouldn't want to bestow a year's good luck on a guest?

And therein lies the problem: for the past two years, I -- the dismayed host -- have found the almond in my bowl.  The first time it happened, I apologized. When everyone good-naturedly busted my chops, saying maybe I'd snuck the almond into my own bowl, I tried to laugh it off. But when I spooned up the almond this year, I was downright embarrassed. "Look," I said, "after all the bad luck I've had this year, I'd prefer NOT to get the almond again. I don't want to go through another 12 months like 2011."

"Well, maybe you have to embrace the almond for it to work," said Denise. "Accept it. Don't feel sorry. Just look forward to better luck this year."

Good advice. So that's what I plan to do -- embrace my almond. After all, like all good traditions, the almond-in-the-oatmeal isn't about acquiring luck. It's about cherishing the luck we have. Eat enough bowls of oatmeal on enough Christmas mornings, and you'll eventually find the almond in yours. You'll eventually get your moment to feel special. Luck eventually comes to everyone, and repeating the ritual year after year reminds us of that. And, most important, the tradition brings loved ones together to share a breakfast on a special day, making the ordinary seem extraordinary. The real result is togetherness, and it comes from sharing the ritual, not in finding the random reward.

I've started this blog to explore exactly those kinds of questions: What peculiar things do we do to look for luck? What's the difference between superstition and ritual, and what roles do they play in our lives? What do they reveal about our character?

Join me in embracing the almond and thinking through those questions.