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Thirty-two Hours of Christmas: A Recap
Christmas for me is traditionally a two-day holiday: Christmas Eve with my dad's parents, and Christmas Day with my mom's family, with Midnight Mass and Christmas morning present-opening at my parents'. Last year and this year, I've pared this down to the absolute minimum amount of time spent with my family and away from my own home (computer, bed, 100 mile buffer between me and mom). I drive from my place to my grandparent's around noon on the 24th, spend the night at my parents' house, celebrate Christmas Day wherever it's being celebrated, and leave from there for my place. This year the whole thing lasted about 32 hours and really, worked out just about perfect.
We were told to arrive on Christmas Eve at noon. At eleven-thirty, I was dashing out the door to go pick up Brother #3, who I'd talked to on the phone the night before about how I'd be picking him up at eleven-thirty. He told me to call when I was close and he'd meet me on the street, as the driveway down to his apartment building was iced over. Five minutes from his place, fifteen minutes late, I pulled my phone from my pocket and discovered I had a voice mail message. Sent: today. At: eleven-thirty ayem. "Hey, D, I was drunk and sledding when I called last night, so I don't remember what time you said you'd pick me up. Call me back when you get this. I might be in the shower, so leave a message."
Driving toward his place, I called back. Voice mail, of course. "Hey, #3, this is Dira, I'm on my way to pick you up. I'll, um, pull over somewhere. Call me back when you get this and I'll come get you." I wound up parking in the next lot over from his building, where the driveway had been cleared more effectively. The heat in my car was, of course, broken, I hadn't brought a book, and my cell doesn't have any games. I called![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iuliamentis. helaaspindakaas picked up on the third ring to tell me she was in the shower. I sang along with the radio and wiggled my toes. Phone rang: Brother #3. He determined that he could see my car from his window, and told me he'd be over as soon as he'd put some clothes on. I went back to singing along with the radio and wiggling my toes. iuliamentis called back and entertained me until #3 came wandering up and it was time to take off. It was 12:15, and we had a half hour drive ahead of us.
We were the first ones there.
I don't know if words can properly express my horror of being the first one to any family function not hosted at my parents' house. I don't know any of my relatives outside my siblings and parents in the way that makes me comfortable hanging around their house chatting with them. Luckily I had #3 along, and my grandparents have just gotten a new puppy, a barely-eight-week-old toy poodle, so we survived without significant awkwardness until everyone else showed up, and then it was food, puppy, food, pool, food, hanging out only with my immediate family, food, presents that apparently seemed like a good idea to my grandparents, food, food, packing up cookies to take home with me.
As I was heading back to my parents' house for the night, they wanted me to take #4 as well as #3 in my car. #4 is of small body mass and doesn't actually own a winter coat, so I once again pointed out the no-heat thing and, after a significant amount of shouting up and down stairs, managed to convey to my father that the only problem with the heat is that, due to the broken switch, I can't turn it on. "Oh," he said. "Well, we can fix that."
Hope began to dawn. Maybe this would be the last cold ride home. Maybe he'd be able to repair it himself at home...
We started loading the cars. "Here," he said, "Lemme look at this." He climbed into my driver's seat, twisted around under the dash, and poked things that made alarming metallic thunking noises. "Okay," he said. "It's all the way to the right. Should be on now."
And it was. So: incredibly favorite Christmas present number one: HEAT.
Once back at my parents', we commenced the sitting-around period of the night. I'd gotten a copy of Going Postal fromdaveamongus and tappu, and immediately started reading it. I, uh, seem to have this actual, serious, literary-not-sexual kink for the establishment of postal services. Order from chaos, that sort of thing. Filter that through Terry Pratchet, and, well. I am in love with this book.
Then, off to Midnight Mass. Swapped jeans for a skirt and crammed into my Dad's car, my parents and us three younger kids. First time I'd been to Mass in a year; less surreal, I think, than last time. But. Incense. And realizing that you know things you aren't, most of the time, aware of knowing, like, May the Lord accept this sacrifice at your hands, for our good and the good of all this church and
Peace be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give him thanks and praise.
All powerful and ever-living God we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks and praise...
I had to google that just now, but stick me in a pew and it's all reflex. I can mouth the priest's parts as well as recite with the congregation.
And singing Hosanna in the highest and remembering my childhood imagining of Hosanna as a sainted hermit-woman living in the heights of some lonely mountain, being brought some good news or honor by singing supplicants commemorated in song.
So then we went down to the after-midnight reception in the church basement, ate our snacks and fled. Got home at nearly two in the morning to find Brother #2, his girlfriend, and their collection of three dogs (one German Shepherd, two Huskies) awaiting us. The dogs were very happy to see us. I was mostly aware that it was after midnight and therefore![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide would have gone live. While my Dad and #2 were barricading doorways to keep the dogs and the Christmas tree safely segregated overnight, I slunk over to my parents' computer, booted it up, and hit the yuletide website for just long enough to glimpse the fact that someone had written - for me! at my request! - a 52k R-rated Aral Vorkosigan/Simon Illyan story. I will never know how I managed to refrain from squeeing out loud.
It was past two by then and they were about to block off the doorways between the family room with the computer and the stairs, so I took myself off to the guest room (my room, ages 4-17) and went to bed.
I woke up at six and, I shit you not, could not get back to sleep, because I was so excited. 52k! Aral/Simon! R-rated! MIIIIIIINE! And, of course, tantalizingly out of reach for many hours yet.
I finally dozed off again around 7:30 and was awakened at eight by the sound of the dogs welcoming somebody to the morning. I got up and found #3 and #2 awake. Pushed past three dogs and climbed over the barricade (a screen door on its side, braced by chairs) and, uh, yeah, went and started up the computer. I knew I wouldn't have time to read my story (52k! R-rated!) but I wanted to see what people were saying on LJ - and lo and behold, someone had already recced it! I tried not to be jealous that someone else got to open my Yuletide present before I did, and took this as further evidence that this story was going to be awesome, and anticipated it all the more.
Shortly after eight, we'd rousted everyone out of bed, got the coffee brewed, and started opening presents. I got lots of wonderful presents, and it appears that myconnexions airfare and membership are being financed this year by Santa, so, OMG WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. There was a fire in the fireplace, and wacky dog antics (my mom retrieved not one but two Godiva chocolates, apparently intact, from the mouth of the younger-but-by-no-means-smaller of the Huskies) and Christmasiness. Breakfast, phone call to daveamongus and tappu, celebrating Christmas morning on their own side of the state, and some more time to curl up on a couch and read Going Postal, which was so good as to distract me from how much I wanted to be reading my Yuletide story.
Then - a flurry of showers and dressing and packing up loot and packing cars and wrapping presents - and off to Aunt's house for Christmas Day with #3 and #4 riding along. I don't know if I've mentioned or implied this, but there was HEAT in my CAR. I was WARM. Even my fingers! Even my toes! Warm! I had to turn the heat down.
We were by no means first, this time: I was greeted at the door by my five- and seven-year-old girl cousins, and hugged by everyone and enjoined to eat and, mercifully, asked exactly no questions about what I've been up to lately. There was a lot of eating, and a lot of watching my 84-year-old grandmother open presents (I got her America: the Book. She was delighted, and one of my boy-cousins immediately asked to borrow it from her.) assisted by my young girl-cousins. Then, more eating. When I'd gotten tired of that, I wandered upstairs, where the girls were playing and my eldest cousin's two-year-old daughter was sitting in an armchair, being read to by a CD-player and staring at her Disney Princess book.
I'm, uh. I'm not going to foam at the mouth about the incredible, incredible wrongness of buying your kid a CD to listen to and follow with a book so far beyond her reading level that she can't even connect what she's hearing with what she's looking at. I'm not. But I went over and sat with her, pointing to pictures and explaining the action as best I could, and showing her how to advance tracks on the CD so that it would talk about whichever princess she happened to be looking at. Oddly enough, she seemed to pick up some concept of what was happening in the stories when I talked to her about them. After a while, however, she said, "You go down and eat." So, summarily dismissed, I returned to the basement. I didn't eat, though. Well, just one little brownie thing for the road, but then, suddenly, miraculously early (I don't know if I've mentioned this, but #3 is my favorite brother) #3 and I were excusing ourselves and making a break for it, slowed down only by the necessity of hugging everyone and being given a container of leftover pasta.
Home by 7:30, which means Christmas lasted only 32 hours, departure to return, and then I finally got to read my much-anticipatedyuletide story, The Councils of Despair. Let me just say again: 52k. R-rated. Aral Vorkosigan/Simon Illyan.
And, having actually read it? OMG I WAS SO RIGHT TO BE EXCITED. SO. MUCH. LOVE. It's what Aral was up to, while Cordelia was busy being traded home and therapied, and Aral, drunk, talking about his Captain, while Simon quietly looks after his Admiral, and I just cannot even begin to express how much I love this story and whoever wrote it for me. My God.
And now it's 9:30 and I am curled up on the couch with another 500 Yuletide stories ahead of me, plusds_seekritsanta and jbbs and OMG SO MUCH FIC EVERYWHERE. And I don't have to go back to work for another eight days, and there are only 28 scenes to go on the hockeyfic. So. A Merry Christ(mahanukwanzakanalia)mas to all, and to all a good night.
We were told to arrive on Christmas Eve at noon. At eleven-thirty, I was dashing out the door to go pick up Brother #3, who I'd talked to on the phone the night before about how I'd be picking him up at eleven-thirty. He told me to call when I was close and he'd meet me on the street, as the driveway down to his apartment building was iced over. Five minutes from his place, fifteen minutes late, I pulled my phone from my pocket and discovered I had a voice mail message. Sent: today. At: eleven-thirty ayem. "Hey, D, I was drunk and sledding when I called last night, so I don't remember what time you said you'd pick me up. Call me back when you get this. I might be in the shower, so leave a message."
Driving toward his place, I called back. Voice mail, of course. "Hey, #3, this is Dira, I'm on my way to pick you up. I'll, um, pull over somewhere. Call me back when you get this and I'll come get you." I wound up parking in the next lot over from his building, where the driveway had been cleared more effectively. The heat in my car was, of course, broken, I hadn't brought a book, and my cell doesn't have any games. I called
iuliamentis. helaaspindakaas picked up on the third ring to tell me she was in the shower. I sang along with the radio and wiggled my toes. Phone rang: Brother #3. He determined that he could see my car from his window, and told me he'd be over as soon as he'd put some clothes on. I went back to singing along with the radio and wiggling my toes. iuliamentis called back and entertained me until #3 came wandering up and it was time to take off. It was 12:15, and we had a half hour drive ahead of us. We were the first ones there.
I don't know if words can properly express my horror of being the first one to any family function not hosted at my parents' house. I don't know any of my relatives outside my siblings and parents in the way that makes me comfortable hanging around their house chatting with them. Luckily I had #3 along, and my grandparents have just gotten a new puppy, a barely-eight-week-old toy poodle, so we survived without significant awkwardness until everyone else showed up, and then it was food, puppy, food, pool, food, hanging out only with my immediate family, food, presents that apparently seemed like a good idea to my grandparents, food, food, packing up cookies to take home with me.
As I was heading back to my parents' house for the night, they wanted me to take #4 as well as #3 in my car. #4 is of small body mass and doesn't actually own a winter coat, so I once again pointed out the no-heat thing and, after a significant amount of shouting up and down stairs, managed to convey to my father that the only problem with the heat is that, due to the broken switch, I can't turn it on. "Oh," he said. "Well, we can fix that."
Hope began to dawn. Maybe this would be the last cold ride home. Maybe he'd be able to repair it himself at home...
We started loading the cars. "Here," he said, "Lemme look at this." He climbed into my driver's seat, twisted around under the dash, and poked things that made alarming metallic thunking noises. "Okay," he said. "It's all the way to the right. Should be on now."
And it was. So: incredibly favorite Christmas present number one: HEAT.
Once back at my parents', we commenced the sitting-around period of the night. I'd gotten a copy of Going Postal from
daveamongus and tappu, and immediately started reading it. I, uh, seem to have this actual, serious, literary-not-sexual kink for the establishment of postal services. Order from chaos, that sort of thing. Filter that through Terry Pratchet, and, well. I am in love with this book. Then, off to Midnight Mass. Swapped jeans for a skirt and crammed into my Dad's car, my parents and us three younger kids. First time I'd been to Mass in a year; less surreal, I think, than last time. But. Incense. And realizing that you know things you aren't, most of the time, aware of knowing, like, May the Lord accept this sacrifice at your hands, for our good and the good of all this church and
Peace be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give him thanks and praise.
All powerful and ever-living God we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks and praise...
I had to google that just now, but stick me in a pew and it's all reflex. I can mouth the priest's parts as well as recite with the congregation.
And singing Hosanna in the highest and remembering my childhood imagining of Hosanna as a sainted hermit-woman living in the heights of some lonely mountain, being brought some good news or honor by singing supplicants commemorated in song.
So then we went down to the after-midnight reception in the church basement, ate our snacks and fled. Got home at nearly two in the morning to find Brother #2, his girlfriend, and their collection of three dogs (one German Shepherd, two Huskies) awaiting us. The dogs were very happy to see us. I was mostly aware that it was after midnight and therefore
yuletide would have gone live. While my Dad and #2 were barricading doorways to keep the dogs and the Christmas tree safely segregated overnight, I slunk over to my parents' computer, booted it up, and hit the yuletide website for just long enough to glimpse the fact that someone had written - for me! at my request! - a 52k R-rated Aral Vorkosigan/Simon Illyan story. I will never know how I managed to refrain from squeeing out loud. It was past two by then and they were about to block off the doorways between the family room with the computer and the stairs, so I took myself off to the guest room (my room, ages 4-17) and went to bed.
I woke up at six and, I shit you not, could not get back to sleep, because I was so excited. 52k! Aral/Simon! R-rated! MIIIIIIINE! And, of course, tantalizingly out of reach for many hours yet.
I finally dozed off again around 7:30 and was awakened at eight by the sound of the dogs welcoming somebody to the morning. I got up and found #3 and #2 awake. Pushed past three dogs and climbed over the barricade (a screen door on its side, braced by chairs) and, uh, yeah, went and started up the computer. I knew I wouldn't have time to read my story (52k! R-rated!) but I wanted to see what people were saying on LJ - and lo and behold, someone had already recced it! I tried not to be jealous that someone else got to open my Yuletide present before I did, and took this as further evidence that this story was going to be awesome, and anticipated it all the more.
Shortly after eight, we'd rousted everyone out of bed, got the coffee brewed, and started opening presents. I got lots of wonderful presents, and it appears that my
connexions airfare and membership are being financed this year by Santa, so, OMG WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. There was a fire in the fireplace, and wacky dog antics (my mom retrieved not one but two Godiva chocolates, apparently intact, from the mouth of the younger-but-by-no-means-smaller of the Huskies) and Christmasiness. Breakfast, phone call to daveamongus and tappu, celebrating Christmas morning on their own side of the state, and some more time to curl up on a couch and read Going Postal, which was so good as to distract me from how much I wanted to be reading my Yuletide story. Then - a flurry of showers and dressing and packing up loot and packing cars and wrapping presents - and off to Aunt's house for Christmas Day with #3 and #4 riding along. I don't know if I've mentioned or implied this, but there was HEAT in my CAR. I was WARM. Even my fingers! Even my toes! Warm! I had to turn the heat down.
We were by no means first, this time: I was greeted at the door by my five- and seven-year-old girl cousins, and hugged by everyone and enjoined to eat and, mercifully, asked exactly no questions about what I've been up to lately. There was a lot of eating, and a lot of watching my 84-year-old grandmother open presents (I got her America: the Book. She was delighted, and one of my boy-cousins immediately asked to borrow it from her.) assisted by my young girl-cousins. Then, more eating. When I'd gotten tired of that, I wandered upstairs, where the girls were playing and my eldest cousin's two-year-old daughter was sitting in an armchair, being read to by a CD-player and staring at her Disney Princess book.
I'm, uh. I'm not going to foam at the mouth about the incredible, incredible wrongness of buying your kid a CD to listen to and follow with a book so far beyond her reading level that she can't even connect what she's hearing with what she's looking at. I'm not. But I went over and sat with her, pointing to pictures and explaining the action as best I could, and showing her how to advance tracks on the CD so that it would talk about whichever princess she happened to be looking at. Oddly enough, she seemed to pick up some concept of what was happening in the stories when I talked to her about them. After a while, however, she said, "You go down and eat." So, summarily dismissed, I returned to the basement. I didn't eat, though. Well, just one little brownie thing for the road, but then, suddenly, miraculously early (I don't know if I've mentioned this, but #3 is my favorite brother) #3 and I were excusing ourselves and making a break for it, slowed down only by the necessity of hugging everyone and being given a container of leftover pasta.
Home by 7:30, which means Christmas lasted only 32 hours, departure to return, and then I finally got to read my much-anticipated
yuletide story, The Councils of Despair. Let me just say again: 52k. R-rated. Aral Vorkosigan/Simon Illyan. And, having actually read it? OMG I WAS SO RIGHT TO BE EXCITED. SO. MUCH. LOVE. It's what Aral was up to, while Cordelia was busy being traded home and therapied, and Aral, drunk, talking about his Captain, while Simon quietly looks after his Admiral, and I just cannot even begin to express how much I love this story and whoever wrote it for me. My God.
And now it's 9:30 and I am curled up on the couch with another 500 Yuletide stories ahead of me, plus
ds_seekritsanta and jbbs and OMG SO MUCH FIC EVERYWHERE. And I don't have to go back to work for another eight days, and there are only 28 scenes to go on the hockeyfic. So. A Merry Christ(mahanukwanzakanalia)mas to all, and to all a good night.