Christmas at Chez Alfredo, part one

Alfred being my dad of course.

Trying to wrap presents with a two year old around is a challenge that goes somewhat like this:

• Cut paper, put the scissors down.
• Stop the baby from running away with them. (not from them, as I had originally posted.)
• Get the present covered in paper but not taped down.
• Stop the baby from opening a previously wrapped package that doesn't belong to him.
• Look for tape.
• Discover the baby has gleefully unraveled half the roll and is making decorative sticky balls on your other packages.
• take the tape away from the baby, who then picks up the roll of wrapping paper and runs away with that.
• Once a safe distance away, he unrolls the entire roll around himself, makes himself a little nest, and jumps up and down on it.

Repeat several times.

*facepalm*

Christmas at Chez Alfredo, pt 2

Hoo boy. I. am. Tired.

Folks are still crazy, but they didn't drive me crazy which is good. If it weren't for the pervasive sense of ick following me around here I would have enjoyed myself immensely. I dunno. I kinda feel like a goldfish in a bowl that everyone looks at and is amused by, but no one really relates to. Meh.

Other than that, I had a good time. No drama. No craziness. Nothing except the usual family bits really.

Called up the stranded boys and beatgoddess today to spread around the Christmas cheer a little, so birkwelch, harinezumi, and timarok all got called. :D Yay.

Christmas traditions in my family include a ridiculously massive dinner on the good china and silver, and this was no exception. Except the family's outgrown our dining room table, so we've got a pretty well established kiddie table to which I voluntarily exile myself to every family event, as I have much more fun with the kids than I do with the grown ups, plus it helps in that whole avoiding Penuche thing. The adults all stuff themselves then talk politics and the uppity Negro experience (no joke, they do this Every Year. Down to the same jokes and everything.) Although usually we do presents before dinner, for some reason we had dinner first, and the kids and I were bored out of our skulls because we wanted to rip into some wrapping paper and everyone else was digesting and yakking. So Alejandra, Spring and Dakota took up the chant in the living room finally, yelling "Presents! Presents! Presents!" which would quickly have gotten annoying if Spring hadn't come up with a stroke of brilliance. She leapt to her feet, started shaking her fist around and began demonstrating. I'm not kidding. There is something wicked hilarious about a bunch of kids barricading the gift filled living room and angrily yelling "NO PRESENTS, NO PEACE!"

And it got the adults out the dining room in a hurry. Luckily everyone else found this just as funny as I did.

Sometimes I really love these kids.

So the sum total of my Christmas take went thusly:

• A gorgeous velvet lined carved box from Amastan
  
• A Louis Vuitton hat and scarf set (Dad just doesn't give up... *sigh*) and a pair of really fun leather mittens
  
• Those cute club boots I was drooling all over last month
  
• A Lane Bryant gift certificate (hello sexy pants...)
  
• A digital camera (not quite as good as I was hoping megapixelwise, but still wrapping circles around the one we currently have)
  
• a not as yet extant rather loaded Dell laptop that's not getting here until the 30th. *foam at the mouth* *drool*

Guess I'll be taking that collection for the debt reduction then. Or the Germany trip..., though signs point to not needing that quite so soon either. :)

I'd write more, but Roy Jr. is hovering over my shoulder because he wants to play NBA Live, plus I've been drafted to help with the dishes.

I'm having a good Christmas. I just miss some folks. :)

Christmas at Chez Alfredo part 3

Fifteen people => fifteen place settings of silver => 2 forks, 1 knife, 1 dessert spoon => 60 individual pieces of silverware that all has to be meticulously washed and dried immediately, seperate from all other tableware that needs to be washed cause goodness knows Mom'll kill you if you get a scratch on her REAL SILVER. Oh, and I didn't mention the fifteen odd serving pieces.

Salad, buffet style dinner, and dessert, all on the good china. 1 plate, 1 dessert plate, 1 salad bowl times fifteen is 45 pieces of fine china that also can't be washed with the rest of the plates, pots or whatever. You'd think we were keeping kosher.

Various assorted serving platters, pots, coffee cups (luckily the coffee service that goes with the china stayed in the cabinet this time) tableware and miscellanea, and several odd bits of assorted Tupperware.

almost two hours after finishing the dishes, annoyed, completely wet down the front due to my parents' kitchen faucet's tendancy to spray everywhere and badly in need of some coffee, my fingers are still pruny. But damn it, the china is sparkling.

Man, there are too many people in my family. Weird. Someone pointed out today that this is the first holiday where my family was all together for a holiday. The Browne clan, complete.

I have this strange feeling that it will be the last time.

The holiday wound down shortly after the dishes were done, and people trickled out to brave the traffic heading out of the city and put all cranky and overtired children to bed. Amastan lost a few brownie points with me by somehow miring me in a conversation about how I should probably try the Atkins diet, but regained a couple of them when they realized, probably by the glazed twitching of my eyeballs, that they were beginning to sound like cult members. "Don't worry, Andee," quipped Stanley. "I've got my purple shroud and my Nikes." Gaggh.

I was thankfully rescued from that conversation by timarok, calling as promised after he had gone to watch The Matrix Revolutions, after which he talked to me for a bit and quite charmingly fell asleep mid-conversation. I'm not being sarcastic either - harinezumi used to do the same exact thing in high school when we'd be having our marathon 10pm-3am Friday night telephone calls. It was just as cute then too. And it was 4 am over there, so I don't blame him... :)

Called sundart too - they are working her ass off tonight and then she's got to get up and do it again tomorrow. Poor dear.

Everything's wound pretty much down. The two remaining siblings are doing the last of the carnage cleanup, as, after two solid hours of washing I felt I had made my contribution to the effort. The house is kid free, as Vicki's baby was packed off the Penuche's to spend tomorrow with his rambunctious cousins. And hopefully driving Penuche crazy in the bargain. Gamel's off my neck too, as there is someone else in the house for him to pick on. Mom's asleep. Dad's downstairs probably having the usual black fraternity rivalry problem with Vicki's husband right now as I can hear them both laughing. And I, I once again sit here, recording the passage of time.

I'm glad I talked to everyone I talked to today. Fragile as these threads of brief communication are, I cling to them fiercely, for they are my silver cord back to myself when I am here, cut off from my own comfortable, if equally stressful reality. *sigh*

So in a nutshell. Got to see the kiddieboos, there am I happy. Had some really good family time, there am I happy. Avoided Penuche quite a bit, there am I happy. Got really good loot, there am I really happy. And I got to talk to people I loved today, there am I ecstatic.

Good day, biscuit. But man, am I glad it's over.

And one last Christmas thing

I discovered something really cool whilst listening to the obligatory Christmas music today.

Nat King Cole fits very comfortably in my range. Like, no straining for the low stuff or anything.

*sigh* I need to start singing again for real.

But not the adult contemporary christian Jesus crap my brother is listening to right now that's slowly making me want to defenestrate things. I'm taking a perverse pleasure in the fact that the disk seems to be defective and keeps skipping horribly.