Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Day #13: Holidays. Who invited the Rockwells?

When I was in my 20s, I envisioned a Norman Rockwell version of the holidays: My family and I are all seated around a cozy fireplace on Christmas Eve wearing coordinating sweaters, drinking eggnog and chatting about the parties we've attended this holiday season...


Doesn't that sound nice? I think it sounds nice...



Shame its so effing inaccurate. The following is a list of things missing from/wrong with this picture:


1. This scene does not take place on Christmas Eve.
Nope. Its the day before.
See, when Mike and I went from Catagory D f0r Dating [Description: Spend the holidays alone with your own folks] to Catagory S for Serious [Description: Figure out how the hell you can be in two places at once] we had to get creative about Christmas. I know couples who swap back and forth; who spend Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with another and then switch the next year.
Not Mike and I. We move Christmas. Yes, we have that kind of power. We have Christmas on the 24th with my fam and on the 25th with his. We make Christmas happen twice (side note: How siked are the future little MikeandBeths gonna be when they hear this? "Hey Lil MikeandBeth, Santa comes twice to our house! Now, run along and brag about this to the other little kids and try not to get beat up.")


2. There is never any eggnog. Ever.
First of all, its gross.
Second of all, its not strong enough. You see, by the time Mike and I and the entire state of Virginia have spent 31/2 hours shlepping up I95 in the rain/sleet/snow/fog behind every available incapable driver, we need beers, and we need them fast, which leads us to...


3. We are not "relaxed." At least, not until we are about 3 or 4 beers in apiece, and then we're so buzzed we've forgotten its "Christmas Eve."
4. We are not talking about the parties we've attended.
First, we are bitching about how much traffic sucks and swearing we will never do that again.
Second, if you invite us to a Holiday Party, consider your invitation a MikeandBeth attendance jinx. In the four years I've lived in VA, I've missed over a dozen holiday parties. Its staggering.
However, I think I've found a solution: Change the calander so that December has twice as many weekends and then move it to June. And then, please god somebody throw a party on a Friday and as long as snow doesn't start coming down in 80 degree heat then I think I can make it.
Now we'll probably never be invited to another holiday party again.
So we will spend all of January listening to hilarious stories about parties we did not attend. We will then throw a massive New Year's Eve party to trump your party and make ourselves feel better.

You will note that I have not commented on the bit about the "coordinating sweaters." You were looking forward to that part. I hate to disappoint but...
This happened:


So perhaps there is some Norman Rockwell in my life.

3 comments:

  1. I cannot really say just how much I love the sweaters.

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  2. You haven't tried MY eggnog...

    ReplyDelete
  3. i seem to remember some beth and meg coordinating outfits from back in the day...

    ReplyDelete