Ho-ho-holy crap it's nearly 2008...I hope you all enjoyed your Christmases. I have eaten about a million cookies, watched a ton of hockey, and spent an inordinate amount of time in my pajamas. I am still trying to get rid of the cold I picked up on the plane two weeks ago, but other than that its been good to be home. To understand how dorky our holidays get, you need to know something about my family. We're usually a mixture of the Cleavers and the Griswolds. Around the holidays you have to throw in a bit of the family from A Christmas Story as well. They waited until I got home to decorate the tree, which turned into me decorating the tree while everyone else sat on their asses. The Perfect Child (my 18 year old brother) and I kept up the tradition of spending a day with my mom's mom and doing most of our cookie baking. My father has come up with a new ingenius method of getting us to help him shop for my mom - bribery with breakfast out at a little greasy spoon near our house and then kidnapping to do said shopping. Said presents then end up miraculously in my room to be wrapped.
Christmas Eve usually means evening Mass and then dinner at our local Chinese Buffet. This year I ended up having to help out with the earlier children's Mass 'cause my old choir director didn't have anyone to do the solos. Singing soprano with a cold is always a good time....Anyway, we did the whole dad-reading-The Night Before Christmas- hanging the stockings bit.
Christmas Day dawned sunny for once, and it was the usual struggle to get everyone but Animal (my 16 year old brother) out of bed at 10. Animal also didn't get any presents from Santa this year due to his, ah, less than stellar academic performance. Among other things, I got an iPod Nano from The Wind (the 21 year old) and Santa, which was all I really wanted anyway. :) My dad's parents came over for dinner, which required us driving them to and from our house. My grandfather, at 87, refuses to drive in the dark anymore. TPC and I drove them home around 8:30 which resulted in a half hour diatribe against President Bush and Dick Cheney by my grandfather. I have no idea who started THAT conversation...
The next day I had to get a vaccine (never a good time, but seriously not when you have no health insurance 'cause you're only home for a few weeks). I have no idea what the nurse did, but I have a bruise on my arm where she jabbed me! I also got dragged out to Longwood Gardens in the rain to see the Christmas display (most of which is inside thank God). My mom's family came over to do presents on Friday. That's always a good time as everyone is as crazy as us! (I kid you not - two years ago myself, my mom, my aunt, my female cousins, and my GRANDMOTHER got into a discussion at the table about what a FUPA was!) I only got asked when I was getting married once by an uncle, which was a nice little bonus for me.
All the fun and festivities were, of course, peppered with the usual sarcastic comments, jabs, and wet-willies that occur the rest of the year. I can say it was one of the hap-hap-happiest Christmases this side of the nuthouse! :)
I'm off for NYC in the morning to ring in the New Year in Queens with friends. For some reason this year, the theme is the 90s. Why does everyone feel it necessary to have a theme?? Anyway, there should be a good story or at least funny pictures. Happy 2008! See you in all in the New Year!
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Glad you survived the holiday with a minimum of marriage inquiries. I guess you didn't need my services after all! ;)
So, you're going to be in my neck of the woods tonight? Have a good time, but be careful not to keep drinking until your teeth float...
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