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ninanevermore.
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The annual Christmas Family get together (which was held the Saturday after Christmas this year) was fun and cheerful. It was not boring because everyone was too busy watching television or was too nervous to bring up a topic lest someone get offended. It was not explosive because someone said what they really felt and then someone else responded with how they really felt, only in a louder voice. It was almost like a Hallmark Card commercial, except all the adults were a lot less attractive and the food was h'ordevres and a sandwich tray instead of a Norman Rockwellian feast.
This has thrown me off of my bearings. What other things that I held to be true in the universe are going to prove to be unreliable? Will the sun start rising in the west instead of the east? Will spring no longer follow winter? Will rush hour traffic disappear? Will radio stations stop playing the same old 40 songs over and over again in rotation? There's no telling. Christmas at my father's was pleasant and fun this year, so anything is possible. Be afraid, be very afraid.
If the sun rises on the wrong side of the world tomorrow, you can all blame my stepsister for that. She is my family's secret ingredient to peace and happiness, because it only happens when she and her husband haul their 4 kids down to Houston from Fort Worth that any holiday occasion is worth making an occasion of. I don't think she knows how powerful an effect her clan has on us all.
Because there are so many of them, they keep things lively. My stepsister is smart and witty, but not argumentative. If only I had her magic, but I don't. Her kids are animated, but well behaved. Her husband is cheerful and good natured. As a group, they bring out the best in the rest of us. When they show up, my stepbrother's girlfriend also shows up. She learned a long time ago not to bother unless my stepsister is in town. With both of them there, I have two intelligent women close to my own age to talk to. I can enjoy a conversation with them, instead of sitting with the dunderheaded men in my family white they stare at the television. I had come to believe that a meal with my family is more like an ordeal with my family, and something I just have to endure a couple times a year.
On this occasion, though, things were different, and not just for me. My son had 5 cousins to play with, including one his own size. My stepsister's 11-year-old daughter took a shine to my son, and asked her mom if they could buy him (she then turned to me and asked if I would like to take her little brother in exchange, since I would also have to agree to the sale if it were to go through). My stepsister didn't say yes or no to the idea, but a short while later my son bit my niece on the forearm when she tried to take a stuffed animal away from him, which may have caused her to change her mind.
If only every family gathering could be like this. If only Fort Worth weren't so far away, they might make the trip more often. Perhaps I should beg, or offer to help pay for gas, or do whatever needs to be done to get her to take a 4 hour dive with 4 kids in the car next year.
I blame my stepsister that a lot of family traditions just didn't happen this year. No fights broke out. Boredom didn't cause anyone to slip into a waking trance. No one's feelings got hurt. No one sulked. No one watched the clock to determine if the minimum amount of time required to stay in the will had been spent. No one faked an illness as an excuse to go home when they figured out that it hadn't.
Why, it hardly seemed like Christmas at all.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
The annual Christmas Family get together (which was held the Saturday after Christmas this year) was fun and cheerful. It was not boring because everyone was too busy watching television or was too nervous to bring up a topic lest someone get offended. It was not explosive because someone said what they really felt and then someone else responded with how they really felt, only in a louder voice. It was almost like a Hallmark Card commercial, except all the adults were a lot less attractive and the food was h'ordevres and a sandwich tray instead of a Norman Rockwellian feast.
This has thrown me off of my bearings. What other things that I held to be true in the universe are going to prove to be unreliable? Will the sun start rising in the west instead of the east? Will spring no longer follow winter? Will rush hour traffic disappear? Will radio stations stop playing the same old 40 songs over and over again in rotation? There's no telling. Christmas at my father's was pleasant and fun this year, so anything is possible. Be afraid, be very afraid.
If the sun rises on the wrong side of the world tomorrow, you can all blame my stepsister for that. She is my family's secret ingredient to peace and happiness, because it only happens when she and her husband haul their 4 kids down to Houston from Fort Worth that any holiday occasion is worth making an occasion of. I don't think she knows how powerful an effect her clan has on us all.
Because there are so many of them, they keep things lively. My stepsister is smart and witty, but not argumentative. If only I had her magic, but I don't. Her kids are animated, but well behaved. Her husband is cheerful and good natured. As a group, they bring out the best in the rest of us. When they show up, my stepbrother's girlfriend also shows up. She learned a long time ago not to bother unless my stepsister is in town. With both of them there, I have two intelligent women close to my own age to talk to. I can enjoy a conversation with them, instead of sitting with the dunderheaded men in my family white they stare at the television. I had come to believe that a meal with my family is more like an ordeal with my family, and something I just have to endure a couple times a year.
On this occasion, though, things were different, and not just for me. My son had 5 cousins to play with, including one his own size. My stepsister's 11-year-old daughter took a shine to my son, and asked her mom if they could buy him (she then turned to me and asked if I would like to take her little brother in exchange, since I would also have to agree to the sale if it were to go through). My stepsister didn't say yes or no to the idea, but a short while later my son bit my niece on the forearm when she tried to take a stuffed animal away from him, which may have caused her to change her mind.
If only every family gathering could be like this. If only Fort Worth weren't so far away, they might make the trip more often. Perhaps I should beg, or offer to help pay for gas, or do whatever needs to be done to get her to take a 4 hour dive with 4 kids in the car next year.
I blame my stepsister that a lot of family traditions just didn't happen this year. No fights broke out. Boredom didn't cause anyone to slip into a waking trance. No one's feelings got hurt. No one sulked. No one watched the clock to determine if the minimum amount of time required to stay in the will had been spent. No one faked an illness as an excuse to go home when they figured out that it hadn't.
Why, it hardly seemed like Christmas at all.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 09:47 pm (UTC)Boooooooooooooooooooooooring! LoL
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 02:02 am (UTC)hardly seemed like Christmas
Date: 2009-01-02 09:57 pm (UTC)Re: hardly seemed like Christmas
Date: 2009-01-03 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 11:36 pm (UTC)I got to have family drama and a pleasant, loving family gathering within 2 days time. I'm so lucky!! :P
*HUGS*
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 02:15 am (UTC)*hugs back*
no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 12:32 am (UTC)We have Eid gatherings, and inevitably the same sort of things with arguments etc happen there ... I think there must be some sort of genetic argument switch that gets flipped when more than 8 genetically related people converge in a house or something like that ... well that's my theory anyway hehe :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 02:11 am (UTC)Glad the card made it! It had a long journey from Texas to Lancaster! :)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-06 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-06 02:24 am (UTC)Hope you're feeling better. If that's what it took to get a decent family Christmas, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do, I guess. *hugs*