Holiday Madness - Christmas Weekend

This is about the weekend right before Christmas. Next year the Christmas weekend will be right after Christmas (thanks to 2008 being a leap year, there will not be Christmas on Wednesday. My plan is to save two days and use them the two holiday Fridays - 26 December and 2 January 2009 - wahoo! I won't be the only one. And four-day weekends are not to be squandered.

Back to this year (best not to squander all of 2008 awaiting the holidays that I have just so happily survived!), the weekend prior to Christmas was really the start of the holidays, more so than just Monday night and Tuesday. On Friday, 21 December we had Luis' work holiday party at a restaurant LuNello's. Do not waste any day or evening going there. The food was OK. As with any event, the hors things that I can never spell (isn't that staggering? There is a word I can't spell) were pretty good (although mostly fried and so avoided by me) and the sit-down dinner was up there with sawdust. This is not unusual. But people, despite knowing this, never learn.

The room was run by a little man in a perfectly dreadful brown suit (very few brown suits look good) with an extremely loud voice. He was very likely gay which I could care less, although I'm always baffled by men who get those "flouncy", very obviously gay mannerisms, as though a billboard advert is required to be gay. I never get that. Why isn't homosexuality just a state of being rather than a foreign nationality? I keep hoping someone will explain it to me but I haven't met anyone who I thought mightn't be offended if I asked.

The pasta, which should have been delicious, was crunchy. Not al dente, but crunchy-undercooked. Yikes. No poaching that kitchen staff. Even I wouldn't do that to someone.

I managed to stay away from the greasy stuff and the sweet stuff. No off-the-approved-list foods and no desserts. I'm always a little tempted by that but I loaded up on fruit and felt great. I was less than thrilled that most people there had no idea I'd lost weight, other than Nick, who complimented me and asked if I had lost a lot of weight. And John's wife Liz noticed and was raving - that felt great! Otherwise, no one noticed.

I like most of Luis' coworkers in a passing way, but they are all saddled with kids and so the men all talk about sports (I cannot contribute at all to those conversations) and the women all talk about their kids; ignoring the fact that most have kids that are grown, have they nothing else in life to talk about? This is 17 years of insipid conversation.

At the end of the night I met Julie, whom I immediately disliked, and her "boyfriend/father" guy, and I don't know how I felt about him. She was an immediate turnoff. You need to work hard to make me not like you that fast.

Saturday I went to my parents' house as usual, and then was home by about 1630 for Anna's impending arrival, which thanks to traffic was pushed back to 1800. Groan. They arrived around 1820, and we went downstairs. There is always a high price to be paid when it comes to seeing Anna and Kirk - too much time spent with their father (Luis and Anna's father - I don't believe I have ever met Kirk's father and I think he died a couple of years ago).

I love seeing them, but time spent with Luis Sr. is never a good thing. He is a lecturer, a know-it-all and a martyr... never good things in and of themselves and the combination is deadly. I could happily go without ever talking to him again. And the funny thing is that after some chitchat and then his father recommending all cheap places to eat (never gonna happen with this crowd), we all ordered food from Kabob Paradise and then when it was ready, Luis, Anna and Kirk all ran out to pick it up, leaving me with-- AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I could not believe that they did that. Maybe they did not see it for the obvious bailing out that they did - although you can't sell me on that - but I certainly did. Luis Sr...? Who knows. Even if he knew, he could care less, since he knows we will be a captive audience at some point.

The food was excellent, and the conversation was a little more even, since even Luis Sr. had to eat. And then at the end of dinner, he suggested that we should all go to Florida together and he will show us all the different places that had meaning to him. I did not say a word. The answer is no. Luis can go and put in for days of torture, but quite frankly, I would never do that to anyone I loved. I could not think of anything more boring than that, and I would kill myself before signing up for something as wretched as that.

We came upstairs at the end of the night to open gifts, which must have been around 2130... Anna and Kirk gave Luis a game and a pocket watch from Scotland; they gave me an ambulance front with my name on it (it's a ceramic ornament) and a Scottish heather necklace that I love; Luis Sr. gave myself and Anna another ugly Hummel (I have no one to regift it to, so I will probably toss it. He made the comment that every year he gave me one, where are they? I did not have the nerve to say I regifted them and what is wrong with him, giving me those?! I wish I did), me a set of tea bags and Anna probably the same; Luis got a bag kit that sucks all the air out of the special baggies (there's something that will never get used), and he got (I love this) a teapot and matching cups. Wow. He knows his own son not at all. Not even a little bit. A teapot and cups. That is a perfect gift for me - not at all for Luis! He also gave me the book The Joy Luck Club and Luis The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Again, another thoughtless gift, one designed to turn Luis into the man he thinks his son should be... he would never buy Luis science fiction or something that he would want to read.

Well, I benefitted! I got a teapot and cup set that I like!

We finally went to bed and Anna and Kirk went to the Sheraton on Smith Road, where they always stay.

Sunday was a lazy morning, just the way I like them. Anna and Kirk came here around 1100 and we went out to breakfast sans the outlaw, who declined to come - ah, that overwhelming paranoia has a benefit to it! - so it was a great time out! We had a great time.

We came back and I spent a little tiny bit of time downstairs but mostly I bailed out and left them. I really could not take a minute of Luis Sr. more than I had the whole weekend. I got ready to go over to Lauryn's and left here the same time that Anna and Kirk did to head back to Virginia.

I had a wonderful time at Lauryn's and did not get home until 2030. That was only an hour later than I planned. I went to bed on a happy note. And Lauryn loved her Christmas gift, so I was very, very pleased - when I'd seen it, I knew it was perfect! A very good ending to a long weekend.