Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. I always loved the decorations and baking, cooking, trees- all the sights, scents and sounds that come with Christmas. This year I was not into it. It was an effort to get the decorations out and decorate the tree. There was no joy in the shopping. I hardly played any Christmas music. Didn’t watch the usual Christmas movies. Didn’t bake a single cookie. Didn’t take any pictures. Looking back now I feel bad, but I just wasn’t into it this year. We had a nice Christmas Eve and Christmas day but the ghost of my screwed up family hung over everything we did. I could not escape it. It’s all anyone wanted to discuss. To the point where by Sunday, I think my brain just needed to shut down. I spent the day in my pajamas napping on the couch, waking only to watch an episode or two of True Blood and fall back to sleep. It was a much needed day of doing nothing.
We stayed home Christmas Eve and had a wonderful spaghetti dinner, just the four of us. As much as I enjoyed being home, a part of me was sad because Christmas Eve is usually my brothers big night. He always cooks a big meal and we go to church and then to my parents and eat and watch “A Christmas Story” for the first time. So I was a bit sad. My dad decided to stay home and have Christmas eve and Christmas day dinner with my mom and brother. Which is just another insane aspect of this holiday. Seriously, WTF?
Christmas Day. Kids actually slept in a bit. Although I miss the fun of having little kids on Christmas, I like that they are old enough now that they are not up before it’s light out to see what Santa brought. I think everyone was happy with their gifts: Jimmy got two pair of Diesel jeans, some shirts from Gap, DVD’s, (Family Guy volumes 5 & 6, The Wire Season 5, Trailer Park Boys seasons 1-4 and the movie, some Aqua Teen and Futurama, Twin Peaks complete series)cologne, accessories for his ipod, and some London guides for his trip this spring. Connor got an X-Box 360, a couple of games for that, another game for his wii, some LSU gear, a Drew Brees jersey, a couple of Green Day hoodies, Green Day calendar, a new Hornets Jersey- to wear the the Hornets game we got tickets for while we are in town in February! Mike got some new LSU gear a medicine ball, and LSU Mr. Potato head, a Northwestern shirt and two books. As for myself, Mike and the kids surprised me with a beautiful print from Frenchy:NOLA Love, fleur de lis boots, and rhinestone fleur de lis earrings! I also got enough B&N gift certificates to keep me reading through the first part of 2009.
Everyone got itunes gift certificates and Berts Bees lip balm in their stocking. Mike also got a flashdrive since he was still using floppy disks at work! Yeah the State of PA is that far behind in updating their computers!
We ended up going to my Aunt and Uncles on Christmas night. Aunt Sue and Al were in from New Hampshire and my family’s tradition is to gather at Michael and Emily’s on Christmas night. My cousins were there and my brother and his girlfriend showed up. That’s when the shit hi the fan. I haven’t really talked to my brother about whats going on with our parents. I don’t feel like doing into details about it, I’m so tired of it all but things got really heated for awhile, words were said, but in the end, I think it was good to get it all out. My brother is being brainwashed by my mother. He is in a terrible position, living in the same house with my parents and its affecting him badly. I can’t imagine what its like in that house. The tension and hostility. Something has to give soon. We all ended things feeling a little better but the drama continued the next day when my mom found out about it and is now mad at everyone in the family. She needs counseling badly and she refuses to even consider it. She will not compromise at all on anything, everything has to be entirely her way or else she won’t speak to you. She has alienated everyone in the family at this point.
Friday we took Connor to best buy to get a network adapter for his x-box so he can play online. Which pissed me off. He also has a wii and PS3 and both of them came ready to go live online, no additional equipment needed. For what we paid for the x-box, you would think it would come with the damn thing built in! So now we have all three game systems. Connor says we are PSwii60! We haven’t seen him since, he’s having a great time playing online. I spent the day finishing up Dexter season 3 and starting True Blood season 1. Both are EXCELLENT! We were sitting on the couch relaxing Friday night and Jimmy came down to tell us he was going out. A few minutes later he came running back in and yelled “the Switzer’s house is on fire!”. I pictured a small fire, and Mike yelled to Jimmy to get the fire extinguisher as he ran out of the house. I was behind him and when I reached the sidewalk I stopped dead in my tracks. The entire house was engulfed. There was fire blazing out of every window on every floor. The Switzers live two houses down across the street. It was an inferno. Our next door neighbor Mary said they were not home, they were at the movies and she was calling them. I knew they had a dog and Mike tried to run around to the back of the house thinking he might be able to get in, but there was no way. Every room was on fire, windows were exploding. We were nervous that the fire was going to catch on the telephone pole outside their house. I ran in our house and unplugged the computers and tv just in case power lines started going. It was horrible. Just horrible. The worse house fire I have ever seen. It was a complete loss. The fire department arrived quickly but there was nothing they could do to save anything. So devastating. I can’t even imagine losing everything like that. Luckily their son got to scene quickly and knew where the dog was and did get in to save the dog. I was so upset thinking about their poor little dog in that fire. One of the firemen said that it spread so quickly because of the old asbestos siding on the house. It acts like a chimney and keeps the fire inside the house. So it just spread very quickly.
Saturday we had Mike’s dad over. Sue and Al also stopped by. Then I went out with Aunt Sue, Emily, Traci, Bridget and Kerry. We had dinner at Rodano’s, then stopped by a new bar, Luna, and finally ended up at the Casino. I had a mild headache at the beginning of the night that just got progressively worse all night long. By the time we got home I was working on a migraine. I was really in no mood to be out. Sunday was our slug fest on the couch.
Today I feel better. More energetic. Already put all the Christmas presents away. Going to do the laundry, maybe grocery shopping. Mike took the day off. I’m ready to put the holiday behind us. I’m ready to put this year behind us.
2009 is approaching bright and hopeful. I’m full off optimism for the new year and I’m eager to get it started.
