Mr. and Mrs. Wiener, this is Mr. and Mrs. Anuz

For the most part, I'd say I'm pretty traditional. I try to be progressive at times, but deep down, I believe in being a little old fashioned.

Because of this, a new California law awakened me from my holiday blogging sabbatical (a minor hibernation stint) and brought me back to the real world. And, after about a month sans blogging, I realized my dad is right, when you quit, it's hard to come back to it (he says: you shouldn't skip a day of running, because once you stop, it's a heckuva lot harder to start again). And he's right. It was hard to start, which reveals just how intrigued I was by this new law.

The law provides a newly married couple with several options when choosing a last name:

1. They can take either spouse's current last name
2. They can take either spouse's birth name
3. They can create a hyphenated combination of the last two last names
4. The can create a new name using a segment of both spouse's last names.

After scrambling the letters in both of my parent's names before they were married, I discovered my last name could have been far more interesting (the law gives hope for the Smiths, Joneses, and Browns of the world). A few of my favorite new last names for my family were: Ion, Beer, and, my favorite, Wiener. Whitney Wiener. Nothing like alliteration.

Now, I'm not so sure about this new law. I still believe the man should ask the woman on the first date. He should court her (with flowers). He should ask her dad for her hand in marriage prior to proposing. He should not see her before she walks down the aisle the morning of the wedding. And she should take his name.

Of course, I know a number of powerful, admirable, and wonderful women who are clinging to their maiden names, however, I'm a believer in a little old fashioned romance, which makes me question the new Whitney Wiener law.

But, I guess that's the beauty of Arnold's new CA law: it's your choice. If my dad had begged my mom to join him in celebrating this new law by taking on a different last name, she may even have complied. Her name, though, is Muff, and I fear her adulthood would have been drastically different if her resume read Muff Wiener.

Lucky for her, my parents maintain the same devotion to tradition that I do, therefore they stuck with the more common route. Thank goodness.

Of course, all of this love for tradition does not mean I'm afraid to try new things. Which is exactly how I found myself skiing in New Hampshire at the start of break. Although I got the hang of it, when Jim decided to take me down a black diamond at the end of the day, I found myself questioning why, exactly, I agreed to the run.But, I survived my day on the slopes, and will definitely go skiing again (sans black diamond). And after trying a number of new things (also- a Patriots game- outside!) in New Hampshire, it only renewed my love for the traditions my family upholds on Christmas. Between the Christmas Eve church service, hot chocolate on the stairs, and buckeyes at dinner, we managed to maintain quite a few traditions.

Of course, the festivities were not quite fulfilled without Ashley and Jose present. In the end, though, I'm grateful that they have two wonderful families to split the holidays between.

Additionally, I'm grateful that they chose to take Jose's last name, as opposed to mixing the two surnames and ending up stuck with a last name like Anuz.