Question of the Week is a feature in which we take a cross-section of opinions from Detroit Lions players and coaches (and sometimes opponents) about a singular topic. Most of the time, they have nothing to do with football. Have a suggestion? Email: michael.rothstein@espn.com.
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ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- It's the holiday season and there are a bunch of questions that could be asked.
At the suggestion of colleague Chantel Jennings, this question came up. What is your weirdest holiday tradition?
As always, here are the answers from Detroit Lions, some of whom went away from the December holiday season.
Tight end Joseph Fauria: I do watch A Christmas Story, the shoot your eye out. I watch that so much. Oh, and my grandmother makes gumbo. My whole family is from the south, we're Creole, so she makes this pot that's taller than [her]. She has to be on a stepping stool to cook it because it's so big. It's like this much room (holds hands a small width apart) between the vent and the pot. The pot's probably like two feet tall and there's so much seafood and sausage and all that stuff in there. It's your typical New Orleans-style Creole dish. It is so good. I told her to freeze it and send over here. She's going to do that. It takes like two days to make. Yeah. She's in Los Angeles, but my grandparents are from there, so that's what they do.
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Offensive tackle Cornelius Lucas: I pray the night of New Year's. I think everybody does that, though. I've always done that since I was young. My mom always made me do that. I've never celebrated Halloween, either.
Reporter: Why not?
Lucas: I was always raised that Halloween was the holiday to celebrate the devil. So my mom was just bought us our own candy and got pizza and stuff and we'd be inside.
Reporter: So when you went to Kansas State, were you like, 'What's going on?'
Lucas: Nah, my friends and stuff did it. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've been trick-or-treating. Probably two or three times. Max.
Reporter: Was that when you were in college?
Lucas: Nah, when my mom shut it down, I kind of grew out of it. I'll probably do the same thing for my kids.
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Quarterback Dan Orlovsky: Christmas movies. I love movies to begin with and I love Christmas. But what we'll probably start doing is once our kids come to the point of being cognizant of what it is and what we believe it to be representative of, we'll do something where we find a family that we can, our kids will choose. My wife thought of this idea. We'll get our kids gifts and they open them up and they each get to select one of the gifts that they got to give away. So we'll do that. We'll start that this year. They'll choose the gift that they say, ‘I'm going to give this to a child.' Other than that, no.
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Wide receiver Corey Fuller: I watch A Christmas Story all day. Christmas. It's the only day it comes on. Literally every minute I get, I watch it all day. Two years ago, I was at Virginia Tech and we were in Orlando for our bowl game and they had different events. The event was to go to Disney World. I had never been to Disney World and it was on Christmas Day. I decided to stay in my hotel room and watch A Christmas Story. I watch it all day. Even when I was a kid, when my mom was cooking and she would yell to make us clean up, I would go and do what I had to do and sit and watch Christmas Story all day. It was something I had to do.
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Offensive lineman Rob Sims: Oh gosh. We got into that elf thing, Elf on the Shelf, my wife started doing it with the kids, my daughter. I think it's so weird that the elf leaves at night and comes back in the morning. She's like, remind me to do something with it in the morning. She'll put it in different areas. One time I walked in my daughter's room and the elf was sitting on the sink with toothpaste, like 'Be Good.' I'm like, what is going on?