PBG's

Christmas is a week away.  That means, lots and lots of family.

Which is a good thing, in small doses.  Mr. G and I have been out west in the land of wonder for the last few Christmas seasons, and so the HUGE amount of family that we are seeing this season is a nice balance to the lack of family for the last two years.

My sister is coming home from NYC this week.  She is my antithesis.  She lives in NYC (clue #1 that we are opposites), she stays out until 3 am on WEEK NIGHTS.  She has long beautiful hair.  She is involved in everything under the sun.  She thinks I am trying too hard to be middle class (she is wrong.  I am trying way to hard to be upper class.)  We will likely argue about everything under the sun, but we will sit and relax and sip wine too.  She will pick on me for how my house is decorated, I will pick on her for sleeping til 2 pm.  And then we will hug, put our heads on each other's shoulders, and say "Lalloo."

Although this will be my first married Christmas away from the PBs I can already tell you what will happen on Christmas dinner with the whole fam: the cousins will all come over.  Some will bring their Boyfriends.  Said boyfriends will be thoroughly embarrassed when the entire family goes around after dinner but before dessert and tells their "war stories."  This is when everyone goes around and tells their funniest drug and alcohol related stories.  It is a hoot.  Bubbie and Popop ended up in the ER once from a wild party my mom and aunt threw.  Beat that, kids of our generation.

Yesterday was my in-laws annual Christmas party.  It was fun, but there were 7 screaming kids there (it sure felt like more).  It was great birth control.  Mr. G's cousin (I guess he is now my cousin too...?) Isaac was there.  We like to argue.  A lot.  See, when it comes to politics, we disagree 99% of the time.  99% of the time, I am right (aka, Dem) and he is wrong (aka Rep).  The other remaining 1% of the time, we agree (he is sometimes smart/right/Dem).  Last night, we successfully made it an entire evening without arguing.  Which was good, because I was too tired to form a coherent argument.

At the holiday party yesterday, my in-laws have this tradition--every family takes a line from the 12 days of christmas.  And then the whole family sings it.  So the person who picks the "1st day" sings the "partridge in a pear tree" line every time we get to that point in the song.  Nobody ever wants the first few days of Christmas, because nobody wants to sing those lines over and over and over.  This year, it just so happened that two sweet little cousins got days 1 and 2.  And they were pumped about it because they are only 7 and don't know any better.  (Mr. G and I totally lucked out and got day 11.)  I won't lie, my blackened heart melted every time I heard those precious girls sing "two turtles" (she forgot the dove part) and "a part in a pear tree."  Oh, family.

There are new crawling babies, kids galore, aunts, uncles, and a million cousins.  And I have seen all of them/will see all of them in a 7 day period.  I will have hit my family quota for a few months at least.  But I am enjoying this time with them, and will continue to do so.  I need to remember that nothing lasts forever, and I need to cherish what I have while I have it.  So I will argue, bicker, be embarrassed, laugh until I cry and savor every minute I have this crazy holiday season with these crazy people I call family.

Happy Holidays!