Easter Parade

I like traditions. My traditions vary from time to time, because I also like to invent new traditions and get rid of some old ones I’m not fond of anymore.

I have traditions considering food, like most people do. United people like to have their ham or turkey on Christmas and nourish the lamb on Easter, frankfurters and potato-salad on New Year’s Eve and bathe in bubbling champagne when welcoming the spring on the first day of May.
(I don’t do the frankfurter and champagne-thing, they are not my tradition)

My tradition is to watch certain movies on national holidays. Today, on the Good Friday, I watched Easter Parade. To look at Judy Garland and Fred Astaire doing their routines in this film is a new tradition for me, because it took years for me to get hold of this film. I have dozens of old, American musicals in my collection of films, but this particular motion picture I managed to find just some weeks ago. On sale, which was nice.

I’ve had the soundtrack of the movie for a long time and I’ve seen the movie several times in different matinees, film clubs and the Finnish film archive. But now, at last, I own the film. Or the DVD, to be precise.
It comes without saying that I love the music of the film, composed by Irving Berlin, and now I can sing along with Judy whenever I want to. You see, that’s the difficulty in watching films in movie theatres: you can’t sing out loud. And you can’t dance either on the corridor of a movie theatre.

But now, a new tradition has been born and I can join the Easter Parade on the Fifth Avenue.

Weird? Of course, like my Christmas tradition to listen to Judy when she sings Have yourself a Merry, little Christmas from Meet me in St. Louis.
(I’m not able to sing that song, I usually cry too much and my words just come out in a soggy-kind of mumble as I look at the beautiful, teary eyes of Judy’s.)

Yes, traditions are nice. They make you feel safe and good and for some moments you forget the misery of your life.
Or something like that.

Happy Easter.