Merry Christmas From The Family

Well, that was certainly an interesting Christmas.

We hosted the family Christmas this year. There's 16 of us who generally come to these things: me and my wife; our two younger kids (21 and 19); my oldest son, his wife and their two kids;  my sister and her husband, plus their two kids and their kid's (1) spouse, and (2) girl; the girlfriend's mother; and my 98 year old father.

They came, they ate, they drank, and thankfully they left. The refrigerator is empty, my beer stash has been seriously depleted, the wine rack is in shambles, and the liquor cabinet is barren.

Less than one week before Christmas, my older son's wife left him. It wasn't a total surprise. She's not a bad person, but it was a bad match. She's one of those people who thinks income is made to be spent. She'd make a great congresscritter, but a not-so-great responsible adult. My son, on the other hand, looks to the future. Think of a beer-drinking Dave Ramsey. He's not perfect, but he does his best to provide for his family, both today and tomorrow. Anyway, like I said, the split was not unexpected, but the timing sure sucked.

My sister and her husband are both dyed in the wool liberals. After many years, and many arguments, we've learned not to discuss politics. They're good-hearted folks, but that doesn't mean they both aren't brain-dead no-common-sense people.

My 98-year-old father has limited mobility. He can walk for short distance, but needs help standing and sitting. The majority of the time he uses a wheelchair to get around. He uses his feet to propel the chair most of the time, but occasionally he lets someone push him. He does have pretty good strength in his quads, because he doesn't use the folding footrests on the chair. Instead, he will lift his feet off the ground while he's being rolled around.

So my brother-in-law (my sister's husband) was pushing him down the hall faster than he's used to. Dad lowered his feet to the ground to slow the chair down. His feet snagged on the throw rug, the chair ground to a halt, and Dad pitched forward and hit his head on the coffee table. No serious damage, but the wound did bleed copiously, and our carpet has a few new stains.

Then we have my sister's sons - my nephews. The oldest one (mid-20s) thought it would be funny to tell off-color jokes to my 15-y-o granddaughter. The younger one (early 20s) is one of those hipster types - fedora, scruffy beard, man bun, etc. To show how cool he is he spent most of the day making snarky remarks about everyone and everything.

Thanks, sis.

We do a White Elephant Gift Exchange for Christmas. The gifts are a mix of nice presents ($25 is our family limit) and gag gifts. For example, the hit present this year was a flying screaming monkey. After several hours of eating and drinking, the spectacle of a monkey sailing across the room and screaming like a porn star orgasming resulted in gales of laughter.

Hey, I never said we were a high class family.

Bottom line - no one sustained serious damage, no one left mad at any one else, and a good time was had by all. I hope your Christmas was as enjoyable as ours.