The Politics of Family Christmas

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Phoned my older sister today - know that she and her husband get lonely - they live in Elliot Lake and their two son's settled in Ottawa and London. We managed to talk for a half hour and she only misunderstood me and got impatient once. Sigh!
They will be going to a community dinner on Christmas day. I'm glad that they are getting out. With a son (and two daughter-in-laws, six adult grandchildren and great grandchildren it's a shame that no one invited them or will be coming to visit over the holiday season.
Younger sister will be surrounded by her large family, and her husband's. How many Christmas dinners will she eat between now and New Years?


 
This is to make you smile. About 3 weeks ago, At Crazy Dad's home, I bought 3 tickets

on an interesting looking Xmas basket. Last night, I received a call. I had won the basket.

The very nice woman said, "I will put it in Crazy Dad's room until you come out(Boxing Day)"

Kidding, I said," tell him not to eat anything. It is mine. Lol"

This morning(My phone number apparently doesn't work)!!!! and Crazy Daughter got a call

from her dad. He was SO excited. He is keeping this huge basket until I get there.

No-one is going to get near it. He is guarding it. I love it when he is happy.
 
My daughter, sometimes nicknamed The Princess, did her bit to cast a cloud over the family Christmas day. None of us were biting the bait! We had agreed on an approximate time to gather - she and her kids arrived a lot later. We have all been in the 'waiting for her to show up' spot before and after a while (with a little one who was bouncing with excitement) we decided to start opening gifts. When she arrived she said that we NEVER included her in fun family activities - someone replied "That's one way of looking at it. The youngest guy couldn't wait any longer to start giving and getting'. The newcomers were given sitting spots and we carried on. Turned out that she had drawn a name to buy a gift for (same as the rest of us except the wee one). She 'thought' she had bought something and realised after the stores closed that she hadn't. One of her adult sons had my name and gave me a gift certificate and some scarves - the daughter made sure to tell me were some unwanted ones from her stash. Neither of them are likely to get used by me - I just don't look good in bright reds.

I had a wide range of goodies set out that we all helped ourselves to as time went on. A few hours later when I went back to the group after dealing with some kitchen chores I couldn't see my Princess and kids. Others thought they were playing a game in the basement. One grand ran down to check - hubby looked out of the window. Sure enough - they had left. No thanks for a nice time, no acknowledgement of the gifts they received, no appreciation for the food, no plans to see any of us again - just gone.

Later hubby to me - "Three delightful kids out of four isn't too bad, I guess. We must have done something right along the way. No idea what we did wrong with that one - she really doesn't seem to have anything in common with the rest of the family".

We had a great time anyway. Did lots of lazing around on Boxing day plus a visit to a son for a little while.. A daughter (a different one) , one grand and I went to the nearby city to pick up a new foot I had ordered for my sewing machine. Daughter and I both bought fabric too (kind of inevitable when we enter a quilting store!). Grand bought some art supplies at Michaels. It was another great day. Today we will visit a son as his sister and kids haven't seen their new house yet. I will really miss the family members who live far away when they leave .
 
.750 is a pretty good batting average.

Of course, my parents batted 1.000, but that's for a very small sample size.
 
Your parents' batting average is debatable Chansen.
Glad Christmas was fine Kay. It seems your whole family now has some ways to cope and lessen the drama.
Seems ok with Pinga too.

Waiting to hear from Kimmio. How did it go?
 
It went fine. A Christmas miracle - politics didn't come up at my dad's place. There were 10 of us there in total - friends and family. My step brother told me Trump was briefly brought up before I got there but it was quickly decided by someone that it would not be discussed any further - and that was the end of that. Thank goodness. Step brother showed us a slide show of interesting projects from his job and travels in Scandinavia - he is quite a comedian now so that was fun. My mom's the night before was fine too - we played the gift stealing game where everyone brings one gift and people either pick one from the pile or take someone else's. It was fun. One of my curmudgeonly older male relatives picked the most sparkly dangly earrings (he said, grumpily with a grin, "you are officially welcome to steal my earrings!") and his wife picked a candle in a jar - with the brand name "paddy wax" - although she could not read the print without her glasses and proclaimed "What is it? body wax?!" So we had some good laughs. And too much food.

I wear my shawl as a scarf. I think just the knowledge that I'm cared about - I've been heard - helped a lot!
 
Another funny thing - apologies if it's not your type of humour. When we opened the Christmas crackers - bits and pieces went flying. My dad's friend - a big gruff guy with hilarious and sometimes off-colour dry wit said, with a poker-face, "I didn't get anything...except this little bag of coke." Everyone laughed (there was really no little bag of coke if that needs explaining - it was a joke about the imported Christmas crackers). Then someone said, "I'll trade ya for my mini screw driver...?" Maybe you had to be there, but I was ROFL - these are funny people. Yes, totally inappropriate for Christmas - totally ridiculous - yet the laughter itself was very welcome.
 
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I am so glad that it went well, Kimmio. Maybe that is a start of a new chapter, or, at least a nice commercial break.

Dad was over for part of the afternoon, but, he was not in a great mood.
For our family, I had chosen to ensure my Dad had a turkey dinner, and so joined in with the churches gathering of folks for Christmas. Sadly, Dad was having an off day, and his stress of being at a place different than normal overwhelmed his social ability. It was not easy for those around him, and I am thankful that they are such good people. He was grumpy.
Now, what was funny is that all the way home, he said how wonderful they were, and what a wonderful meal it was, and what a nice place it was, and so on.

There could be multiple reasons, including anxiety or strain from other events, or just....anything.

Overall, though, he had stories to share and participated...and that is likely what was most important.
 
Crazy Dad didn't remember we were all coming on BOXING Day so it was a double surprise. lol

I think there were 16 of us. I know what you mean Pinga about off days although we are learning

not too many folk at a time and a little over one hour is about max for a visit.

He loved his presents and we had lots of laughs as we played the same game. @Kimmio
 
Pinga said:
I am so glad that it went well, Kimmio. Maybe that is a start of a new chapter, or, at least a nice commercial break.

Dad was over for part of the afternoon, but, he was not in a great mood.
For our family, I had chosen to ensure my Dad had a turkey dinner, and so joined in with the churches gathering of folks for Christmas. Sadly, Dad was having an off day, and his stress of being at a place different than normal overwhelmed his social ability. It was not easy for those around him, and I am thankful that they are such good people. He was grumpy.
Now, what was funny is that all the way home, he said how wonderful they were, and what a wonderful meal it was, and what a nice place it was, and so on.

There could be multiple reasons, including anxiety or strain from other events, or just....anything.

Overall, though, he had stories to share and participated...and that is likely what was most important.
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Sounds like maybe his "filter" just wasn't working properly - but all in all he did enjoy his time.
 
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