My Christmas Plans

[dales]

Will visit daughter, grandson and son-in law.

My ex will be there.

Heavy consumpsion of adult beverages will ensue.

Words will be exchanged.

Pleasanton PD will be called and a Merry Time will be had by all.

[rubato]

Will visit daughter, grandson and son-in law.

My ex will be there.

Heavy consumpsion of adult beverages will ensue.

Words will be exchanged.

Pleasanton PD will be called and a Merry Time will be had by all.

Pleasanton PD, such a nice name.

I bet they're very nice.



yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Pleasanton PD will be called and a Merry Time will be had by all.

Well, so long as no one throws the good china....

Well, we're having out annual Pre-Christmas Drama....

This year, we're supposed to do the dinner and presents at our house...(We did Thanksgiving at Little Sister's)

Everything was all set....

But my blow hard brother-in-law, ( who's a real Roman Craig*; constantly trying to get me involved in his "get rich quick" schemes) is complaining that rather than have the prime rib dinner I've got planned, he wants us to cook a turkey...(Apparently he doesn't like the medium rare way we prepare it...I told him he could always put his in the microwave if it wasn't sufficiently ruined for his palate, but you can't undo "well done".....)

I also told him where he could stuff his turkey....

(What kind of yokel would prefer turkey to prime rib? )

So we may wind up with Dueling Christmas Dinners....

I expect we'll have the larger crowd.....


*(five points to whoever can come up with that movie reference without Googling)

[Miles]

Well as far is it goes we, my wife and I , are alone. Our kids are finally gone. Our daughter, 20 and our idiot son 18, no longer live with us. We are not having Christmas dinner tomorrow but rather on Sunday as our daughter is working tomorrow and our son has become a vegan who will not eat pretty much of anything we are having. You know, turkey w/stuffing,baked beans, yams, mashed potatoes,green beans, pumpkin pie and strawberry cheesecake.

Tomorrow I will be making pies and cookies and looking foreward to Sunday and a good meal.

I do wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.

[@meric@nwom@n]

Tomorrow the husband will make french toast and bacon for breakfast. We use Texas toast dipped in eggnog. Yummy. Later we will much on ham and lobster tails. Caviar will be available for snacking. At some point he will go off and give his stepkids and his son their presents. I plan to avoid all step kids and their issues.

[Lord Jim]

Tomorrow the husband will make french toast and bacon for breakfast. We use Texas toast dipped in eggnog. Yummy. Later we will much on ham and lobster tails. Caviar will be available for snacking.

Well, that's it then....

We're coming over to your place...

[loCAtek]

Multiple times, SJ's finest, the SJFD, and ambulance service, have visited my fair trailerhood this holiday , thus far...

Merry Christmas to all!

[@meric@nwom@n]

Tomorrow the husband will make french toast and bacon for breakfast. We use Texas toast dipped in eggnog. Yummy. Later we will much on ham and lobster tails. Caviar will be available for snacking.

Well, that's it then....

We're coming over to your place...

Bring the prime rib with you and you got a deal.

[alice]

Tomorrow the husband will make french toast and bacon for breakfast. We use Texas toast dipped in eggnog. Yummy. Later we will much on ham and lobster tails. Caviar will be available for snacking. At some point he will go off and give his stepkids and his son their presents. I plan to avoid all step kids and their issues.

Thanks for that idea with the eggnog - sounds yummy!! We'll be giving that a go for Boxing day breakfast now.

I've been through the stepkid drama - had four of them. I tried to be Mrs Brady and tried to do all the 'right' things by all the 'experts' and just ended up getting royally shit on by all. Your approach is much healthier

[Sean]

Our nearest family are 12,000 miles away. Saves on a lot of xmas drama.

[alice]

Christmas plans:
Well, it's late Christmas afternoon here now, so I'm relaxing happily.

The pre-Christmas I was quite ill with some awful bug that's around at the moment -just before that I'd had a sort of milder version (compared to some others I associated with - but still unpleasant) of the bug, which is in the form of a cold with always secondary infection/s- in my case in my throat and chest. It nearly went away and then came back with a vengeance as soon as I was back at work with the public transport commuters coughing and hacking and spreading their friendly germs all over the doors, seats, handles and stair rails, and then the office airconditioning constantly infusing me with stale and sick air, while other colleagues cough, croak, wheeze and having near-death experiences at just the right depth and angle for the virus to bounce back at me again (not necessarily the fault of colleagues when you're under punishing workloads, already working 10 -12 hour days, and a 'couple of days' sick leave isn't enough to make you better - this thing needs a month or so!).
So the second time I ended up on antibiotics, two different 'puffers' (ventolin and some steroidy thing that was a bit scary - and no, I'm not 'normally' asthmatic), and some steroid tablets. Four days later they upped the doses on everything and I gave up on work, and whatever remnants i still had to do for christmas (luckily it was mostly done before I got to my dramatic stage - only some interstate friends will get their cards / presents late, but they'll understand ). Luckily, that combination and the time off work got me into recovery mode - by yesterday (24th) i was no longer tired of the effort of trying to breathe, no longer alternating between asthmatic wheezing, bronchial chest eruptions, and gagging. I actually managed to hold some food down, and when I spoke there was actually some semblence of sound that was almost recognisable. Progress!

By today, I am talking in froggy, but happy and understandable tones, and am breathing as if it's an automatic process again. Just in time for it not to ruin my Christmas morning
I'm on the 'heavy doses' of everything for a couple more days and then the steroid doses decrease, and I hope that'll finally get rid of this thing.

It didn't say 'don't mix with alcohol' but I've been pretty careful just in case. I seem to be still alive at this point, so last nights effort obviously wasn't too much. Which gives me a guideline for this evening's fun

Oh, and nearly forgot: also the pre-Christmas had the usual politics because there always is at Christmas time with the kids' dad. The kids are getting older - youngest is 17 - so this sort of stuff is not unexpected and doesn't have quite as much impact as it used to in earlier times. And luckily I was too ill to care this time anyway, so it sort of fell even more flat than usual

So this morning ... the kids and I had a sleep in, and then a really yummy Christmas breakfast which everyone helped prepare, and then just lots of merriment and fun while we made a production of opening the presents in and around the many interrruptions from phone calls and texts from local friends and girlfriends, and interstate family and friends. It was loud, fun and magic.
And now I'm having quiet in between 'down time' while they're all out, and will be having quiet reflection with friends - and maybe the kids - this evening.
It's been the nicest Christmas I've had for quite some time


PS
Sean - It does save on drama
... but can also be quite sad. At least mine are all only 4-6 hours away. Your's (family and a lot of friends) are way too far away.
Hope you have Skype and all that technology stuff that I keep meaning to look into.
... and that you and Sister Mary Fellatio and offspring have a full and happy Christmas anyway

[@meric@nwom@n]

Tomorrow the husband will make french toast and bacon for breakfast. We use Texas toast dipped in eggnog. Yummy. Later we will much on ham and lobster tails. Caviar will be available for snacking. At some point he will go off and give his stepkids and his son their presents. I plan to avoid all step kids and their issues.

Thanks for that idea with the eggnog - sounds yummy!! We'll be giving that a go for Boxing day breakfast now.

I've been through the stepkid drama - had four of them. I tried to be Mrs Brady and tried to do all the 'right' things by all the 'experts' and just ended up getting royally shit on by all. Your approach is much healthier

Let me know how you like that French toast that way, I think it's the best I ever tasted. It was invented out of necessity one year when I was out of eggs and wanted French toast.

Ah yes, step-kids and drama. The thing is that all but one are his step-kids (I say kids, actually they are all in their 20's and 30's now). He raised one of the girls from age 3 till she was a preteen so he's the only daddy she ever knew. The other kids were older when he acquired them, but they still see him as their only dad figure. Their mother is a real piece of work and has used his affection for these kids to manipulate him for years. He also has one son by said piece of work. I barely tolerated any of them, bite my tongue a great deal, try to be nice to the little (grand) kids and suffered through one of them having non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, diagnosed at age 2 almost 3 whilst doing battle with the piece of work grandmother who called and harassed me at work several times. I would happily back over her in my car and remain without remorse. But what are you going to do? He loves the kids in spite of the fact that they are pretty much worthless. He does, however, get that I want as little as possible involvement with them as I can manage. I have made this clear from day one and he accepts that so I accept his need to keep in touch with these kids.

So ho ho ho merryfarcking Christmas.

[loCAtek]

For a change, the geekkids are ALL gone! The geek took his kids to Grandpas and the wifefriend went to her Ex's. We exchanged giftcards pretty much (I gave them a Netflix account) but had fun making a stunning Christmas Decoration that I will now post in the Christmas Tree thread...

[Rick]

From my house to ya'lls.

I hope everyone has a Happy Merry...

[rubato]

I'm having the same sort of Christmas Alice is.

The fevers had come down at lot by the time we were supposed to fly to Portland but not all the way down and some combination of social conscience and self-preservation made me miss the plane. My sweetie offered to stay by I insisted she go and off she went yesterday.

They're having the traditional annual duck dinner tonight. *sigh* My SIL is an extraordinary cook and does phenomenal things with wild rice stuffings.

So I'm curled up here with the heat turned up reading the Mark Twain autobiography.

yrs,
rubato

[The Hen]

It's Boxing Day I always look forward to.

No matter how small the gathering, I always intentionally over cater. That way, I don't have to cook for a few days afterwards as everyone can help themselves to food.



Today is a 'Put-my-feet-up-and-really-enjoy-myself Day', ... and I'm loving it.

[Sean]

Christmas plans:
Sean - It does save on drama
... but can also be quite sad. At least mine are all only 4-6 hours away. Your's (family and a lot of friends) are way too far away.
Hope you have Skype and all that technology stuff that I keep meaning to look into.
... and that you and Sister Mary Fellatio and offspring have a full and happy Christmas anyway

Thanks Alice. We had a lovely day, just the three of us and later today will brave the pissing rain and go visit some friends. Skype is great but not when you've got a fairly unreliable satellite broadband connection...

[Gob]

Our day went well.

Got up early, started the cooking.

Walked the dogs and mother in law.

Unfortunately the figs on the fig tree that over hangs the paddocks where we walk the dogs had not ripened yet, which put the kibosh on fresh fig paste for the cheeses.

Got back, did lots more cooking.

Hatch and dad arrived.

Did the present thing.

Ate about 1/20 th of what we had cooked.

Sent Hatch and dad and mother in law away with baskets of food.

Read new book.

Had a few quiet glasses of wine.

Read another new book.

Had a few more glasses of wine.

Tried reading same book as I read earlier not realising I had read it already.

Then some Xmas wine

Stayed awake long enough to phone family in the UK.

Listened for an hour to them moan and groan about Xmas , the weather, each other, everybody else.

Felt very glad not to be in the UK any more.

Went to bed too full and pissed to give wife a Xmas tuning.

Will remedy that today.