First of all, Merry Christmas or Solstice to whomever celebrates it. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and got some epic loot and time with you and yours.
Christmas is a mess in our house, and passes quickly in a morning of paper and food and brunch and more food. When I was little, my parents set the rule to being 8 AM - we could not go wake them up before then at all on Christmas Day. We could look at our stockings, but we were not allowed to wake my parents up. To talk to other people, I realize just how incredulous that rule is, or the fact that we stuck to it. But stick to it we did, and now they are the ones that have to fight to get me out of bed Christmas Day. I got to bed late on account of stuffing the stockings (yes, I know. I know. It reaches new heights of apathy when I do all of the wrapping for everyone in the house and as well as stuffing the stockings), and at 9 AM? Screw that, I'm not getting up. Are they crazy? Another half an hour. Shove off. Go eat your cinnamon buns and drink your coffee and let me sleep. Then she starts tickling. I bury my feet between the mattress and the railing (I have a water bed). So she goes away, and I think I've won the battle.
Only temporarily. Five minutes later, she's back with Outlaw, my big-ass black lab and the only one who can get on the water bed, even with his gimpy back leg (I need to take him in to get that x-rayed, because he's been limping and I do not like it). So up he comes, and he half-squashes me and licks and kisses and slurps. And then he starts thinking, "hey... this is really damn comfortable. You know, mama, you're onto something. Go back to sleep." So he cuddles into me and I work at getting back into bed (he's forced me half out of the bed thanks to his position), and after about ten minutes of this, and I'm still not going anywhere, my mother gets my brother to come in and play his stupid plastic recorder. My hearing sucks, but high-pitched noises can kill me.
They win. I'm out of bed and I'm not happy about it (insert the obligatory 'I'm out of bed and dressed, what more do you WANT?!' t-shirt of mine). Everyone is far too chipper for this time of day. I don't drink coffee or any stimulants like that to wake up, so I'm a bit 'blergh' for a while. I pass out jumbo cookies to the dogs after my mother assures me she didn't give the dogs a chewie this morning. These cookies are about 9" long and 3" wide and 1.5" thick - they were freaking huge. Keep these in mind.
So we get to the presents. I got to add some stuff to my kitchen supplies list, which is good. I am now three appliances closer to a complete kitchen and being able to move out, along with some smaller things, which was really nice to get. If you've ever seen my Kitchen Box list (and I know that some of you have!), you would laugh - for the last three or four years, really, I've been collecting stuff and building up my inventory for moving out. So now, I have essentially a few more pieces to it, and a new diabetic cooking cookbook. That makes me happy - I'm not diabetic (but I do have insulin resistance), so I'm really careful about what I eat and how often I eat. I know that having cookbooks are silly when you can just peruse the web and find millions and millions of recipes, but my mom and I have a massive collection of cookbooks, and sometimes, just leafing through them can be fun and inspiring.
Grady has left the living room, and is in the dining room, where all of the stockings are on the table. Haven't seen him for a while, so I go check what's up there -- turns out he was sick. 2 cups of dog food, 1 chewie, still mostly whole (MOTHER!!!!) and the entirety of that cookie... in three separate piles on the carpet. Grady has a tendency to gulp his food far too fast, and gets himself sick later. Oi vey.
Made brunch (fresh grapefruit, blueberry waffles, Canadian bacon, omnomnom), and started the cleanup. By then, it's 1 PM. Had to adjust the truck seats and bring in four bags of dog food (we have to order it special, so we buy six bags at a time), and finish my cheeseball (which was seriously the best cheeseball I've ever had). Then it was time to go out to my Uncle's after picking up my grandfather.
In my family, we have two Christmas parties - one for my dad's side of the family, and one for my mom's, and never the twain shall meet. My dad's side of the family would laugh themselves sick at my mom's side, so it's better that way. ^_^;;;; Fortunately, I have my BlackBerry, so all is not lost. My grandfather's had some minor strokes, and really shouldn't be driving distances any more, and his companion can't drive, so they kind of depends on transportation to these get-togethers, especially at this particular Uncle's place, which was half an hour away on slick roads (all rain and ice, no snow this Christmas!). But get there we did, and if you remember my last blog about D-1 and D-2... well.
Well.
In the five and a half hours we were there, I made D-1 cry five times. Five times, people. As I've said before, I do not mind well-behaved children, and will tolerate their presence. Howler monkeys, on the other hand... well, I don't want a monkey in the house, so what on earth makes someone think I want to be confined with their screaming spawn? If I wanted that, so help me, I'd go to the damn zoo. He has this collection of balls, and he's throwing them at everything and everyone - from the big TV to people to pictures on the walls... And by balls, I'm talking about everything from sponge to wiffle to hollow plastic (like road hockey balls) to solid rubber balls. I tolerate this until he gets me in the face with one of the rubber balls while I was talking to his mother, and bent my glasses. I told him if he threw that rubber ball at ANYONE again, I'd show him what it felt like.
He did.
So I got him in the side of his stomach with the rubber ball. He starts to cry.
My cousin, C, left D-2 on the blanket on the floor, and D-1 jumped on her and made her cry. So I grabbed him and told him not jump on her. He starts to cry again.
He was crawling around on the floor, and was entwining himself around a wheeled computer chair with a 250-pound gorilla in it. I caught him with my feet and dragged him back as said gorilla moved the chair, so the kid didn't get his fingers crushed.... and yes, he starts to cry.
Because there's some 16 of us for dinner, the four younger boys (now aged 17-14, you'd think they'd sit at the adults table by now...) have their own card table that's set up for them to eat on. The table had been set, and D-1 was climbing on top of it, where glass plates and glasses were set up. I took him off of it and set him down. He starts to cry.
After dinner, the kid is throwing a tantrum because C's trying to feed D-2, and isn't paying much attention to D-1. So he's screaming and he won't shut up. I get in his face, order him to be quiet, and... well, you know how it goes. He starts to cry. I swear to god, it's days like this that make me everlastingly thankful for my childfree status. I was seriously using dog language at the kid earlier, trying to get him to calm down and sit down and act rationally. He also had about 10 handfuls of chocolate, so I suppose the behaviour could be partially attributed to that, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph... No kids. EVER. EEEEEEVER. Why? Because if my birds EVER behaved like that, or the dogs, I would put them in their cages/crates and go out for a bit. You cannot legally do that to a child (assuming someone found out...).
So it was an interesting night. Dinner was good (turkey was cold, but perfect), everyone loved my cheeseball and the recipe was demanded by all. So aside from that brat? Pretty good day.
I've watched a bit of Rome (one of my birthday gifts - seriously one of my favourite shows), relaxed, had a look at a cookbook and cuddled my dogs and birds. I got into a giant cuddlepile of three dogs that lasted until Outlaw got jealous and broke it up by barking his fool head off, and I have happily ranted and raved here.
A good evening.
Also, because this is epic and I think needs to be passed along constantly... I present to you Jeff Foxworthy's Redneck 12 Days of Christmas. Enjoy.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!
*CRASH*