Christmas, Past, Present and Future

I am a little late with this post because of the holidays...so here it is from the archives.


Back from the sunny beaches of Aruba. My mind is having a hard time getting itself back into the routine. First, my sleep pattern is all messed up and second the holidays are this week and I have not even shopped for gifts. Can you say gift cards? My sister finds them so impersonal. Me, hell, it's less complicated for the perfectionist in me who has to find the perfect gift for everyone. Give 'em a gift card and call it a day.
Yeah, um, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

For the holidays I reflected on Christmas past, present and future. I traveled to Ohio for the holiday to be with with my family. It tends to be about as much pleasure as putting a hot stick into your eye. AND folks that's not even painful in comparison.

The Past...

Grandma #1 - looks you up and down..First words out of her mouth "You look fat. Are you gaining weight?" she then chuckles "been eating pretty good, ey?"

My Mom looks at her mom with that look that says "my children all have self esteem issues. what are you thinkin?!!" And I, with a evil gleam in my eye consider, " would it be so wrong to pick up the little 4'8" old lady and toss her out into the snow?"

Grandma , in her "ever so honest" way follows this ego booster up with guilt, and I mean that literally, she guilts you into eating all the food she has prepared. She circles the table, like a hawk looking for prey with a pot and serving spoon in hand zoning in on the empty plate as you put that last bite of food into your mouth. You wave her off saying that if you eat any more food you will explode to which she replies, "What! You don't like my cookin'? I cooked all this food for yuns, (that' right, yuns) and no one appreciates it! Who is gonna eat it. What'll I do with all this food?" Hmm ...maybe donate it to a small country seems to come to mind.

Your only vice is to just give in. "Ok, grandma, bring it on, better yet can you just attach it to my a**, it's so much easier, less digestive issues."

The Present...

My sister and her husband decided to host Christmas at their house this year. She invited both of my grandmother's, who have not seen each other in years and my mom and my dad, who have been divorced for 5+ years and do not speak to one another. Of course she does the inviting before asking my mom if this would make her uncomfortable, if so she can come later. NICE.

I decided to pack some valium and make sure she had her bar stocked because this was a highly volatile situation and one must be prepared when the s**t hits the fan.

She prepared a small feast, enough to feed a small country and just like my grandmother had in the past was ready to pounce on anyone who critiqued her cooking. I, prepped my mom, that no matter how anything tasted it "was damn good'. Unfortunately we would have no control over what would come out of my grandmother's mouth. Grandma #1 is much more critical of everything since she still has her senses, Grandmother #2 is just happy to be alive. So as #1 took her first taste of the soup , my sister hadeprespared, the one that she had made so many times for many years, I held my breathe. I knew one bad comment and my sister would blow, like Mt. Vesuvias. As the spoon touched her lips and she swallowed out of her mouth came the words, "this is good". I release the breathe I was holding and thanked god for the small things in life. It turns out I was much more optomistic than I should have been because as soon as I released that breathe out came, "did you use real chicken broth in this because it doesn't taste like real chicken broth it taste like it came out of a can."

Before my sister's head did a 360 and turned into Linda Blair from The Exorsist, my brother- in law made the save, "well she had to use some chicken buollion cubes because blah, blah blah...." essentially he took the blame for the lack of "real" not canned chicken broth in the soup.

Oh, the fun did not stop there, oh no. After dinner we exchanged gifts. Now, in the past we would give grandma #1 and #2 some slippers, maybe a robe or a sweater. But they would never wear them or use them. If you were to go into either one of their closests you would find those same items still pristine in their boxes. In fact grandma #2 wears the exact same suit to every event. She had on the same suit that she wore to my sister's wedding 10 years ago. The same suit she wore to my niece's baptism four months ago. You know I just had to ask.."Grandma, is that the only item of clothing you own?" as I look over at my father, her son, the man who needs to take some responsibility of getting his mother into some current clothing.

She just replies, " I like this suit." "Grandma, I know and I love you in it but every holiday picture or event you are wearing the same outfit." At this particular moment my sister's husband carries over a snapshot of the family from their wedding . I give my mom the "please take her shopping" look. Regardless that it is my dad's mom, this woman needs a woman's touch.

Grandma #1 takes this opportunity to ask me what the hell I am wearing. Of course, I am in jeans to which she disapproves since they are slightly faded and are low riders. She, of course, doesn't know what low riders are, she just knows that they are low, they are jeans and they need to be yanked up. She runs over to me and lifts up the back of my sweater to yank my pants up and lets out a scream, "what the hell is on your back?" "oh, that grams would be my tattoo." "oh god, no man is going to marry a woman with that sh*t on her body." At this point my parents are laughing hysterically (hey we have common ground) at my expense. So I decide to add more fuel to the fire, "yeah, gram, I liked it so much I got two more, one for Tina (my sister) and one for Jay (my brother, who is in Colorado with his wife and baby and not here to be subjected to this circus show).

Back to my point about the gifts. We literally stopped buying gifts for the g-ma's because they will not use them. However, my sister still feels the need to still gift them, she did so this year by giving each of them a box of candy.

Two days later Gma #1 on the phone with mom, "what the hell kind of gift is candy?! and they are caramels, you know I can't chew caramels, what the hell was she thinking or was she just being mean?"

"No, ma she was just being considerate I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it and probably wouldn't have given them to you if she was aware"

"Well, I can't eat caramel..you know your brother and his wife gave me some nut bread.."

"Well, ma, you can't eat nuts you have diverticulosis.. why are you critizing my daughter for giving you caramels when you can't even eat nuts?"

Oh, the drama never ends....

The Future...

It is too soon to know or forsee the future. I am planning on hosting Christmas at my house next year. I look forward to really great things to happen this coming year. Maybe I will no longer be the only single grandchild in the family. The possibility of that happening looks good so far. This year someone special sent me roses the day before my birthday which as many of you know is Xmas. But that is another blog entry.

So who knows....that after all is why it's called the future.