Christmas wrapping.
I have been crazy busy in the last seven days, and I’m thankful that the holidays are almost over.
I’m not particularly looking forward to New Year’s. Mostly because the only person I want to kiss at midnight will be nowhere near me, and the party I’ll be at will literally be ALL couples. Ok. I’m done whining about that (for now).
Saturday, my friends and I had our Christmas dinner and gift exchange. I woke up early, at seven, so that I could start baking my poundcake and the cupcakes I was supposed to bring. After furiously baking, making my kitchen a fucking disaster zone (I have about eight inches of counter space in my kitchen), fighting off suspicious people outside the grocery store asking me for money “for the homeless” because I kept having to go back because I forgot nutmeg, or buttermilk, or shortening, or the ten other ingredients I thought I had but didn’t, and just generally running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I got over to DB and The Good Girl’s house only to see a table full of desserts that Kay made.
(Jesus. I’m watching this movie called Winter Passing, and Zooey Deschannel just threw a kitten in the river. What a feel good movie.)
Kay knew I put a lot of thought and effort into making something different, and something interesting for dessert, and then the bitch shows up with cookies, and pumpkin bread, and brownies. I wanted to kick her in the crotch.
My friend Angela was there with her nightmare of a child, who did nothing all night except run around screaming, knocking things over, pushing every button on every piece of electronic equipment DB has, and opening gifts that aren’t his (though, when he opened one of The Good Girl’s gifts from DB, which was in a Victoria’s Secret box, we found out that she’s not quite as good as we all thought), all while hearing both of his inept parents saying, “Jack, Jack. No, Jack.” all night, but never getting off the fucking couch and actually making the brat stop what he was doing. God, they drive me crazy. I told Kay that on New Year’s Eve, I’m going to count how many times they say “Jack, no!” versus how many times they actually get up and make him stop. I predict it will be “No Jack”: 5,000,000,000, getting up: 0.
After they left, The Bitch thanked Jebus that she was blessed with Spud, who is the most perfect baby I’ve ever seen. He almost makes parenting look desirable (I said ALMOST, people).
Sunday was… a typical family Christmas for me.
My mom called me early and was stressing out, and asked me to come over and help her get her house and the food ready for my family. She told my aunts and grandmother at Thanksgiving that she was making everything, and that the only things they should bring are dessert, and the (not very good) dumplings that Aunt Denial insists on making. So when they showed up with five side dishes, my mom almost lost it, and started drinking champagne immediately to keep her from strangling them for being bitches.
My mom gets very stressed out, and when she does, she takes it out on my dad, who doesn’t really do anything except mumble things imperceptably under his breath. My mom told him to get the turkey and start cutting it up. He asked me to help him, so I was standing across from him cutting the meat while he continued to cut more off of the bone. He sucked up a bunch of juice in the turkey baster, and when he took it out of the roaster, before he could do anything else, all the hot turkey grease shot out and landed on me, ruining my cute new orange shirt. That is when I immediately started drinking champagne. By the cupfulls.
My uncle Chris Peterson brought his stupid karaoke machine, and at one point I walked in my parents’ den to find my extremely racist family singing “Go Tell It On The Mountain”. Does anyone else find this ironic?
Later, when we were opening gifts (and I was good and drunk), my cousin B opened one, and my other cousin yelled out, “What is it?”, and before I could shut myself up, I said, “It’s my dick in a box!” And then they all stopped and stared, and my mom declared me cut off.
When I got home, I had to wrap a bunch of gifts. I only got my sister a gift card, but because a) I’m an ass, and b) I LOVE wrapping presents, I found a bunch of boxes of different sizes, and wrapped the gift in the smallest one, wrapped it, stuffed it inside a bigger box, wrapped it, stuffed it into a bigger box, and you get the idea. She had to open six boxes to get to her stupid little gift card. And she said exactly what I was expecting: “God, you’re such an ass.”
Mission accomplished.
And now, I am going to leave you with one of the many reasons that, in spite of being so goddamned far away, I heart Scott so darn much. Because among his many thoughtful gifts, was this:
