Okay, this idea about staying home for Christmas? Bad one. It should have occurred to me that even with ONE person coming over, who's seen the house a mess before, she would have gone into Screaming Hostess Mode allllll day.

Mom sure was a screeching shrew on the 24th. Jeebus. I slept in till 9 and she didn't wake me up, then yelled at me for sleeping in. (If it was THAT big a deal that I be awake when you are, then why did you let me sleep? Never stopped you before.) She threw a hissy about wanting to put some other tree up besides the pink one of hers, she wouldn't let me wrap any other gifts because I didn't wrap them on the 23rd, and she was insisting on having Mauricio spend the night in the guest room for no discernable reason (uh, he has his own house? Which is closer to him going to work on Christmas than ours?) until reality kicked in and she realized she'd never get that room cleaned out.

I ended up having a screaming fit at her myself. I am not proud of this. I am sorry that even this year, not having too many people over and staying home, we can't have a relaxed Christmas the way every single other Holidailies participant does. I cannot imagine what that must be like, and that's sad. I couldn't find peace on this day if I sold my soul to the devil.

I kept saying to myself as a method of making myself suck it up and shut up, "This is the price you pay for having a family. You would be Very Sorry if you ran out on this." I'm not sure it helped much. I kept hoping Mauricio would come over here (someone else in the house inevitably breaks up the insanity), but he didn't show up too dang early. Ended up meeting us at church at 6:45.

They normally have candlelight service at Mom's church at 11 p.m., which is the one I like to go to. I was Not Pleased when she decided she wanted to go to the 7 p.m. one for him. But as it turned out, they had candles at that one too, despite them saying they didn't have candles at 7 in the church bulletin. So, yay for that. It probably also helped that I was "left alone" enough at church to go practice my meditative breathing. I was less fried (the way I was all day) after that.

After church, we had fondue dinner, which was the best part of the day. Sadly, we got too full for the chocolate fondue dessert. I had a great time picking out the food for it (bread, pound cake, and fruit!), but cut up uh, a lot that we couldn't end up eating. So sad.

As for the 25th...I dunno. It was okay, or at least the screaming level went down somewhat on that day. But, eh. It just isn't fun to be an adult at Christmas. We didn't even open gifts until around 8:30 p.m. The best part of the day was sitting around watching movies.

Another thing about Adult Christmas: Mom ordered me stuff from Amazon which never showed up. After a pissy phone call to India, well, it should show up right when we're on vacation in Cambria. Um, yay for timing? The sad thing (in a way) is that back in the younger days, I would have been really ticked about that. But now? I'm apparently too adult to care. Um, whatever. Shit happens. I'm a little ticked they won't show up on the 26th so I have new reading in the car, but what can you do?

As for gifts: got a few cute outfits of clothing (most of which will have to wait until spring to leave my house), two books that weren't ordered through Amazon, knitting calendar (yay!), and... a convection toaster oven. Okay, wasn't expecting THAT. I'm flattered, but the thing is HUGE and my kitchen is small, and I do not know where on God's earth I am going to put the thing, other than directly on the floor. There just is NO counter space for me to put it on whatsoever. I dread the fight we're going to have on NYD about that.

Well, today (the 26th) we leave for Cambria. Earlier than planned, since M no longer has to work all day today. Kind of throws my lazy "pack clothes, shower, toodle around on the computer until 4" plans out the window. I'm posting this while Mom's out of the house getting the car serviced so she doesn't throw a hissy.

Wish me luck. I'll be doing frantic catchup posting on the 29th, since where we're staying is apparently too quaint to have net access. Sigh.

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