No Place Like Home for the Holidays

We are home.

The holidays are upon us.

I am as prepared as you’d be for say, a tidal wave. As in not.

Thankfully my sister absorbed the shock of Thanksgiving.

But now, all these weeks later, it is safe to say that Thanksgiving was the (relative) calm before the storm. For my mother has managed to bitch slap us all, over the river and through the woods, each and every calendar day from Thanksgiving right up until Kwanzaa. A non-denominational-light-the-menorah-grandma-got-run-over-by-a-reindeer-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us-what-surprises-await-us-behind-the-little-doors-of-the-Advent-calendar-foot-on-the-gas-all-the-way-to-Walton’s-mountain-thousand-twinkling-lights smackdown to end all holiday brew-ha-has.

It began simply enough.

I was lying in bed one morning, contemplating whether to jump out from the cocoon of warmth and 500-threadcount sheets to dress in work out gear and run the 5 mile loop a local state park, or remain at home where the unavoidable 8 am phone call from Estelle would surely jar me from my place of inner peace and relative sanity.

Sure I could just not answer. But nothing is ever that simple. And besides, I kind of needed her. I was hoping she could tell me the clothing sizes of my brother's three horrid children so I could shop that afternoon. The advantage being that I could avoid a second grating phone call – the other being to my brother’s home, where no one will answer, and it will be dozens of return phone calls and countless minutes lost in inane conversation before anything gets accomplished with anything resembling competence.

I run head on into the fire and call Mom instead. Maybe I can get the phone call and the harassment out of the way, and then take to the park to run off the stress. A brilliant plan.

Or so one would think.

Mom doesn’t know anyone’s sizes. But she offers to call Joe and find out. Then changes the subject. She is bent on getting her own business accomplished. Have my sister and I decided what we are all doing for Christmas?

Yes, Mom. We decided months ago. I believe we’ve told you. Each of us. A couple of times. Are you drinking? Are you drinking right now?

Since Charlotte will not occupy the same dwelling as Joe – and for many reasons, not just Open Door/Xbox/Cat Poop debacle, I am hosting Christmas Eve.

And not just for that reason. I have a custody agreement that serves to truncate my celebration time with my kids every other year, and if I can, I think I should proportionally curtail the racing from home to home that I would normally otherwise do on Christmas Eve. Let the celebrating come to us. Less drive time. More mistletoe and hot chocolate!

But since Estelle has a very short window – 2 and half days, not a moment more – we have some juggling to do.

But something tells me that since she keeps inquiring about the plan, that she is hoping, even insisting that it be changed to suit some secret agenda.

So it may be more accurate to say that we’ll be manipulating, not juggling. Or being manipulated. It all remains to be seen.