Patrick, of late, has become obsessed with zombies. Anything having to do with the undead holds a great fascination for my youngest child. Apparently he is not the only person affected by this obsession. A quick Google search finds 24,000,000 hits for “zombies.”
Zombies where first made famous by George Romer's “Night of the Living Dead” back in 1965. I remember one Halloween when I was at Coe. I was waiting for a friend to pick me up for a party and decided to fritter away the time watching this film. BAD IDEA. I had to have aforementioned friend sleep on my couch for a week after, as I was too petrified of the living dead to sleep alone.
A more recent addition to zombie literature is the new AMC series “The Walking Dead.” According to the official website, this series is based on the comic book by Robert Kirkman and tells the story of life following a zombie apocalypse. Patrick has turned the watching of this show into his weekly “date night” with Mom. Every Sunday at nine will find he and I snuggled on the couch, drinking cocoa and watching zombies try to catch humans and eat them. We have a surprisingly good time at this; even I’ve begun to care for the fate of county sheriff Rick Grimes and his family in the wake of the unspeakable.
I went to the “Walking Dead” web site and took a quiz to see what type of survivor I would be in case of a zombie attack. According to this site, I’d be one “tough chick,” defending my kiddos at all cost from the scourge of the undead. Cool.
I went to the “Walking Dead” web site and took a quiz to see what type of survivor I would be in case of a zombie attack. According to this site, I’d be one “tough chick,” defending my kiddos at all cost from the scourge of the undead. Cool.
Patrick and Cody are both reading a book entitled “A Zombie Survival Guide” and I bought a hilarious parody of Jane Austen entitled “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” I tell ya, this zombie thing is taking over my entire house.
Cody has a pretty detailed theory regarding zombie symbolism that he has actually talked his English teacher into writing into this year’s choral reading. There is a zombie fan page on Facebook. Daniel Drezner has written a treatise called “Theory of International Politics and Zombies.” Zombies, zombies—they’re everywhere!
We recently watched “Dawn of the Dead” while driving home from the Breitsprecher Christmas in Independence. Well—Dean was driving; the rest of us were in the back watching. Then we had a spirited family discussion regarding the safest place to hide during a zombie attack. We finally agreed on a maximum-security prison as the ideal hideaway: very secure, lots of weapons available, and weightlifting equipment for entertainment and exercise made it the perfect place. I kept trying to talk the kids into hiding in a shoe store—but they didn’t think that would be very practical. It was really fun riding home from Indee, looking at the Christmas lights and discussing zombies as a family.
When I was younger and dreamed of the perfect Christmas with my children, I never imagined spending it watching the undead overtake Atlanta. I imagined something more idyllic and less bloody. But, you know, cuddled up under my leopard snuggie with Patrick is even better than the enjoying the Christmas lights in a one-horse open sleigh fantasy of my childhood.
I guess we can add “enjoying horror movies” to the list of things I said I’d NEVER before I had children. I hope each and every one of you is able to add a new Christmas tradition to your wheelhouse of traditions this holiday season like I was able to add to mine. It may not be baking sugar cookies from scratch, but discussing the perfect place to hide when zombies rule the earth is a fine way to spend Christmas Day
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