Holiday Highlight Reel....Contributions, Anyone? (JFF)

Oh where does one start?

**My beloved grandmother sitting in a chair sans hearing aids, surrounded by family who were talking away to her, as she smiled and nodded, with no freaking clue what anyone was saying to her.

**My son's aunt frantically digging through the multiple large black trash bags for the gorgeous white and chocolate DIAMOND band ring her mother bought for her, that she placed in an empty gift bag, and set it on a shelf to wash dishes. The bag was gone, and so was the ring. After about an hour combing through crumpled up pieces of wrapping and tissue paper, and scouring the house for the *misplaced* gift bag, she finally found it - in HER closet - where SHE put it. Her mother was completely fit to be tied, as her daughter is notorious for this type of carelessness. (She's 32, btw.)

**My house turned into a veritable war zone with Nerf darts whizzing past my head - for days. All my son wanted for Christmas was Nerf guns. If asked what he wanted, his consistent reply was "guns, lots of guns." Nice, I know. Anyhow, just about everyone heeded his request, and he got - ok, I lost count of how many - Nerf guns for Christmas. So for days, I've felt like I was on the frontlines, with my son, my dad, our visiting family friend - age 16, and my fiance running through the house spraying Nerf darts in every direction. I got more than one shot to the face. Enough said.

**My son, at Eat-n -Park on the day after Christmas, with our visiting family friends - 16 year old male, 14 year old female , and their mother - raises his arms up and in true operatic fashion, begins singing, loudly, "(Insert name of 16 year old male) is a creepy, creepy man!" The 16 year old creep (he is nothing of the sort, in truth!) and his sister found it hilarious. Their mother actually did, too. But the people sitting around us, well, I'm sure they believe my son to have issues. :/

So those are my stories, for this year, at least...

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Your in laws pretty much take the cake and that's sayin' something considering mine.

When my youngest daughter was at the height of her eating everything choky sized phase, and the in laws were visiting and didn't understand what choking sized was and kept voluntarily handing her wine corks from their portable wine stash and pencil erasers and pieces if bite sized hard candy to chew on (how did my husband make it to adulthood?), I spent 8 days of hell trying to keep her from choking. Christmas day (on their way out the door) they gave her a present, an unwrapped "antique" (musty from their basement) faded string of Mardi Gras beeds from the 70s. As they handed it to her, I was thinking "Gotta take those away immediately and throw them away" but before they even reached my daughter's hand, the ancient string broke and hundreds of beads scattered over our entire downstairs left for me to clean up by myself, because they were in a hurry and the hubs was away on business.
That and the holiday where my FIL barged in on me a COUPLE OF TIMES (accident? not sure) on the toilet while I was largely pregnant.

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ROFL.... Ahhhh D.! Where's the "like" button!!!

Keep them to yourself, it's NOT what I'm looking for here." :D :D :D

THIS year: My 29yo sister sitting in a chair crying because "Santa doesn't like her as much as everyone else" as she glares at my mom and makes pointed comments in front of my son.

BEST EVER: When our (DH, Kiddo, & my) chocolate lab at 1/3 of a duraflame log (sigh, dumb dog) and hopped up on my mother's leather recliner to have explosive diarrhea.

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Mine's just an overview of the second half of the day.
Driving 1.5 hrs in So Cali traffic, to get to the "big family gathering" at my SO's aunts house, only to stay 1.5 hrs because my DD was so cranky, and had a sick tummy, just to turn around and drive 1.5 hrs BACK home (oh and my cranky baby was screaming and crying for about an hr and 15 min of the ride home). Then I ate a lovely Christmas dinner that consisted of Jack n the Box french toast sticks (because I was too busy chasing the cranky baby to have a dinner at the aunts house), and of course...they were out of my eggnog milkshake....the only thing I wanted to make it feel more Christmas-ish.
Do you remember that scene in Lilo and Stitch where Stitch is on the beach pretending to be Elvis and they start flashing pics of him and he goes bazerk? That was my DD 5 minutes before I hauled her butt to the car, because there were 8 people with digital cams all going off, all at once, all blocking the path for me to grab her baby doll the one thing that would have calmed her down. Did I mention she (remind you she's under 2) picked up a 10 lb snow globe, and I barely caught it as she wanted to drop it on the glass coffee table? To be honest, at that point I wanted to smash that damn snowglobe too.
Never....again...worst....Christmas.....ever.

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I'm sorry for you, but thank you for sharing. I must admit to getting a great laugh at the image of this happening. Your FIL sounds like a character. My inlaws aren't bad, just self absorbed. For the last two years, my SIL and her two kids were out of town for Christmas. So, we were pretty much informed that Christmas was at our house. Last year, I had the stomach flu, and a few of the inlaw crew were parked in our driveway Chrismas morning, calling us before we were up, ready to come in and soak up the magic. (Interestingly, my husband was more upset than I - not wanting to share the morning.) This year, SIL and her kids are in town staying with mom and dad inlaw. It was to be assumed that no one would be coming to our house this year - why would they? Did anyone ask what we think or feel? Of course not, because nobody cares. Not this year or any other. we just do what we are told. With that being said, our morning was wonderful.

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I, too, have existed in the middle of a Nerf gun war zone . . . my son received a semi-automatic version. :P

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We went out to dinner with my inlaws Christmas night. Korean BBQ = lots of meat sizzling on the grill, little bits of oil splashing in all directions so my husband and I are always VERY careful with our toddler when we go. This Christmas, my FIL was sitting across from our son and he picked up a giant thing of squid to wiggle it at my son's face in order to get a reaction. He thought it would be funny to see if my son was curious or scared or whatever. well, he picked it up so rapidly and carelessly, that my husband saw burning oil specks flying towards my son's face (none hit him, thank God). Then my FIL proceeded to put my son's hand on his hot bowl of soup and say "look how hot!" over and over, keeping his hand on the soup longer and longer each time. No thought to whether my son might accidentally stick his hand in the actual soup and/or pour the soup onto himself. Unbelievable. Then came the cake (it was also my SIL's bday) and my FIL plucked out the recently blown out candles and started coming toward my son saying "look! hot candles". Sigh.

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On Christmas Eve while on our way to my inlaws for dinner, we came up on a very bad car accident....not at all funny in ANY way and definately took us all out of the celebrating spirit. After stopping to help we proceeded to my inlaws (late but there safely).

This is were we determined my FIL to be completely oblivious to things around him because while filling them in (which inlcuded that two people had been ejected from the vehicle and they were definately on their way to or from a gathering). My husband adds "there were presents in the back and their cheesecake was in the field", my FIL says "why'd they throw it in the field?". We all look at each other with the "Did he really just say that" look on our faces.

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Thanks for the laughs.

I have no memories of that type to share here.
However, I just wanted to talk about the marvelous diversity
in my (very) extended family.
I am amazed at the wide range of people and kinds of people in my life.

Saturday, at Josh and Nicole's home:
My son Josh and his wife Nicole have two sons, Jack and Finn.
(Jack was named for my dad.)
My daughter Shana and her former SO, Tom
Josh and Shana's dad and stepmother have been together
for . . . . OMG many many years.
Stepmother has two brothers, one biological and one (kinda) adopted.
He became part of the family when he and bio brother were in high school.
So, in addition to the family members I have already listed,
(kinda adopted) brother and his adult son were with us, also.
None of which is especially noteworthy . . . .
though we are all very different
with significantly different values, attitudes, life experiences, etc.

Yesterday, Sunday . . . . . kind of amazing, imo.
My (special) cousin, Kathie, has been my closest family
since I came to Californa in the '60s.
Lots of stories around that but saving them for another time.

Kathie is a widow with two adult children, one of whom
lives in another country with her husband and three daughters.
The other, her son, lives near San Francisco.
He and his wife and two daughters were there.
Wife's parents were there.
One of Kathie's former housemates, an attorney, was there.
One of Kathie's nieces (on her husband's) side
was there with her husband.
Niece and husband's only child, adult daughter,
was there with her husband, John, and their baby girl.
John's dad and brother were there.

All of which may not seem especially notable except . . .
one small group here is originally from India,
one of this group is African-American,
some of the people are Christian missionaries,
some of the people are fundamentalist Christians,
some of the people here are atheists.

We had Thai food.
Everyone had a wonderful time,
especially playing with the baby girl.

S.

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The things we do for our spouses. As long as yours doesn't do the same thing, you will be alright. I don't know where some people are raised - in the barn!!!

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I think that is too funny about your father in law. He sounds like quite a charecter. I really enjoyed the look of joy on my 3.5 year old sons face when he opened his christmas present. He really enjoyed christmas this year and we were able to spend it with my Dad and Stepmom. Happy New year

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