Christmas 2022 recap
The other day I was recalling the excesses of the season and decided that we can never stay home for Christmas again. It's been a whirlwind of fun, don't get me wrong. But I am terrified of getting back into even my most forgiving stretchy waistband jeans.
Because we were here, and we are fortunate to have great friends, we also were able to have dinners out that often included pre-gaming with snacks and drinks.
In perhaps a stunning indictment of either how terrible or how great of parents we are, Alison declared that "I drink more in this house than I do at college."
This was the year of Jeff's Long Island Ice Tea - a concoction that will wake you up before it f-s you up. He's still fiddling with it. I'm not sure I will survive his work to perfect it.
While Kevin was here, he and Ali dragged me into the mess of "Dance Moms," a show I had avoided during its original run. It's horrible. And it played for approximately 1398 hours on Christmas Eve. Three of us were riveted. Jeff was disgusted.
Kevin caught the first flight of the day out of Indy the day after Christmas. He was lucky because I think that was the only flight that got off the ground here. That night, we were out at dinner when my niece, Rebecca, called. The apartment above her had a burst pipe and water was gushing into hers. Apparently it was happening all over her apartment complex.
We drove there instead of home and helped her move things into the dry parts of the apartment. She took up Kevin's space while she awaited word from the complex managers. They've already started repairs, which puts her in a better state than hundreds of others who experienced similar weather-related housing fails.
The expected storm wasn't nearly as bad as the weather teams were predicting, but we did have a white Christmas. In our back yard Christmas morning, there were two sets of mysterious steps coming from the back of our yard nearly to our bedroom window and approaching our back porch. It was super weird. There's an opening to the east of our house, but a fence between the neighbors to the south and west.
There wasn't an indication that a dog had escaped and its owner was chasing it down. No indentation of a ball or something that a kid was trying to retrieve. Just steps. Super weird.
In between hosting and dashing in and out, Jeff and Ali found plenty of time to annoy each other.
One day as I was working at the kitchen counter, the two of them were fighting for space on our too-small and temporary living room couch. They were both focused on their phones and firmly planted. Ali asked if I would bring her the container of salted caramel chocolates. I'm a good mom, so I trot to do her bidding before I go back to work.
The Captain makes a snarky remark about how I don't jump when he calls.
They're quiet for about five minutes before they start bickering.
"Ugh. Take these away from me," she says, turning to him. "Will you help me eat this last one?"
He eats the whole thing.
"Hey!"
"You said you wanted me to help you."
She apparently jerks away from him.
"My feet are cold because you took the blanket!," he complains.
"Now my stomach is empty because you ate my chocolate!"
Because we hadn't had enough time together or meals out, we drove to Terre Haute to meet family there. It was a treat. I'm not sure our waitress was as happy to see us as we were to be there, but we made sure to tip well to overcome our obnoxiousness.
It was a great holiday, and I'm woefully late in posting about it.
Comments
Post a Comment