Setting the Scene: Christmas 2005

Since it is the holiday season... I have decided to begin this season of giving by cataloging what I hope to be the Best Christmas ever... the Christmas of 2006. To set the scene, I have dug up an e-mail I sent to a friend last year describing the family Christmas of 2005... and well you can read for yourself how awesome it was.

Christmas holidays (2005) were fan bloody tastic.... the highlights included me staying in my brother's room one night.. his roommate mistakenly thinking I was my brother and me waking up to a strange boy looming over the bed about to hit me due to some indiscretion my brother had committed earlier (ie. putting some sort of gay porn as this guy's screen saver)... and no I heard no apology... he just yelled at my brother that he was lucky that I never got hit... also going out for supper with my brother and the same guy/street fighter who wore a headband/ bandanna accessory across the forehead and continually referred to himself in the third person as "the champ". The third roommate - well the best descriptor is that when I met him during the holidays he was sporting a page boy haircut .... (somewhat akin to the wig Andy Dick is wearing in Old School).

Christmas itself was held in Calgary at my sister's house in a "new development" which always reminds me of the scene in that movie with John Cusack who is an air traffic controller and repeatedly mistakes his neighbour's house for his own. Anyways, my sister's house is so immaculate that she refused for the three days that my brother and I stayed there to let us sleep on the couches (she has several, and all leather and quite stain resistant) and we were forced to sleep on the floor. She also had no problem whipping out the nip(with no warning) in front of my brother and I as she breast fed the baby... while I have seen nipples before.. I really felt bad for my brother as no guy should have to see his sister topless in whatever capacity it might be. So in an act of self-preservation every time she whipped out the nips, we would joke that she was going to hit one of us in the eye with her "mother's milk" and we would start shouting "the miracle of life. the miracle of life" and crossing ourselves in the old Catholic tradition... she did not take kindly to us repeatedly yelling "the miracle of life" every two hours...

To continue the rant/ complaint... my Christmas gifts again this year were tragic. I sent out an e-mail with a list and another e-mail insisting people stick to the list.. but woe is me and that was not the case. My sister got me a poncho. I could not hide my look of disgust and dismay.. to which she tried to answer with the following phrases, "Don't worry.. you can wear it around the house... and oh well, it was cheap." And this is no normal poncho... it comes up to just below my boobs making it some sort of weird belly shirt/poncho... and adds about 200 pounds of weight and 40 years making me appear like some obese trailer park grandma who likes to wear too tight biker shorts and belly shirts... and I cannot give this sucker away.. even my mother does not want it. To add insult, I asked for socks... thinking you couldn't screw that up.. boy was I wrong - I received 12 pairs of Santa socks... boy will I look stylish in July sporting those puppies. And as an added bonus I also received multiple "Bath products" labelled "Sea Foam" but which in fact smell of a mix of baby powder, bounce sheets and my sweaty grandmother. Indeed it was a wondrous Christmas morning.

And then my family wondered why my brother and I wanted to leave early... besides our aching backs and nipplegate and the fact that I wanted to cry on Christmas morning because my gifts were so bad.. I just don't know. Oh and the fact that I could do nothing to hide my disgust when I found out my sister has consistently voted conservative (I am sorry to insult any conservatives out there)... and yes and the weird "its soon your turn to produce your own baby" pressure I got from little comments like "we'll save the crib" for when "I have kids" and talking about how its going to be when I get pregnant... I'm sorry but that is at least 5 years down the line if not more.... so it was incredibly awkward and weird.

(December 2006 update.... The Poncho was given to the Salvation Army and I managed to wear the Christmas Socks at least once a week, every month of the year .. and sadly most people did not pick up the subtle irony. Also - through a gradual transition, I have stopped referring to my sister's milk as the miracle of life and instead started referring to her small child as "the miracle" possibly out of a mix of jealousy and my need for labelling people without using their real names. See: Ginger Champagne and RJ for more details. I also learned to love The Champ.)

Tomorrow's Post: The beginning of the end to Christmas; The Great E-mail Battle Between E and her parent's.