Well, we almost had one of those perfect vacations if you’re talking about the balance between Partysville and “Oh shit, remember our normal life?” I got all my Christmas cards out (sixty of ’em) before we left. No one forgot anything, everyone was gifted and speaking for myself, I stayed within our gift-buying limits reasonably well. The family got on fine. There were no extended family brawls, no one puked (or even cried, much) in the car and we all liked my sister’s new beau (instead of having a lot of awkward, tense silences around him – which can be fun in their way too of course!). Before we took off last week I also remembered such niceties as taking out all the garbage, completely cleaning the fridge (half the shelves are duct-taped so that was nicely gross to do), and bringing the cat along (who got a lot of love from all of us instead of being left behind to be cat-sitted), and I even stopped our mail (Oh, the cleverness of me!) for the duration. Gee, we are almost not a half-assed family.
I mean, sure – we came home to an absolutely drained bank account and I had 166 mail messages (none of them spam) to catch up on and I am honestly not sure how we’re going to eat over the next six days (probably my current biggest worry. Oh well. Grab another late night glass of wine!) and attend our friends’ fancy New Year’s ball as well as the 80’s prom / spa date in Tacoma I am invited to on the same day.
God, even the stuff I get to bitch about is pretty nice to think on.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year – and may your season extend for just a bit longer. If you want it to, that is.