Yep, it's Christmas!
My sister arrived at 4 am on Christmas Eve with her two almost grown kids. My not-so-grown kids allowed them to sleep until about noon. We spent Christmas Eve finishing up wrapping gifts, getting last minute items (you know what I mean), and just hanging out. My parents arrived after church that evening, about 9:30, and then we were able to shoo everyone off to bed.
This morning, I was up early as usual, and #2Son was right with me. We had established the night before that he couldn't actually wake anyone up until 7 am. He was already into the NASA countdown by 6:15. Fortunately we have a standing rule that's it's okay to get into one's stocking as soon as one gets up, so that held him off for quite a while. My nephew (age 17) got up around 6:45, and they had fun sharing what was in their stockings while waiting for the rest of the family to emerge.
Between 7:15 and 8:30, it seemed that the presents had exploded. Fortunately it was pretty clear who had gotten what. My mom got matching sweaters for me and my sister - maroon cardigans with candy cane and Christmas tree and similar appliques. I was somewhat dismayed until I remembered a co-worker is planning one of those Ugly Sweater days...this is perfect for that. I mentioned that and Mom got offended. My sister fortunately backed me up; she had been planning a quiet gift exchange. We spent some time discussing how, when shopping, Mom falls back into the pattern of thinking she has the daughters she *wanted*, who might have appreciated such sweaters, rather than the daughters she got. That seemed to lighten the atmosphere some. We then spent much of the morning playing Apples to Apples Jr., first with #2Son, and then on our own, as #2Son went off to build his Bionicle toys.
#1Son got a new Zelda game for the GameCube; he is plugged in and will probably have to have the controllers surgically removed in order to go to bed. And tomorrow the rationing starts: He has to produce results toward finishing his homework for the break in order to earn more game time. Protests are bound to ensue....
We spent quite a bit of time harranguing my niece for being a lump; not getting a job, not going to college, not doing anything. I was all for my sister just leaving her here, and I would get her into the local community college and at least get her out of her comfort zone, but that didn't happen. Hopefully the conversation helped some; after a lot of digging, she admitted to wanting to be like Paris Hilton (I think she was thinking it would shock me), but I seized on that and pointed out that Paris Hilton had A) already gone to college; B) was a business woman before almost anything else, because she had to be able to at least know enough to hire good accountants and business managers to keep track of her income and investments; C) might go out to the clubs at night, but pretty surely spent her *days* either on RealityTV sets or in meetings. If she wants to aspire to be Paris Hilton, great; Step One is to go to college. I told my sister to get her a bus ticket if she didn't go enroll at their local community college on January 4.
My nephew is due to graduate in June, and thinks he wants to go to the U of Michigan. I'm not so sure about that; I think the U might swallow him whole. However, it's pretty clear he needs to be in an extremely liberal college town. Since we (as a family) can't afford Antioch or Oberlin, it will have to be Ann Arbor or Kalamazoo. He is more amenable to going to college than his sister is; I think he grasps that college is the main route to avoiding a job in the Fast Food industry.
His downfall is that he is infatuated with the band, Insane Clown Posse. This is sort of over-the-top bad rap-influenced not-music-to-my-way-of-thinking thrashing on stage. I had a discussion of marketing with him regarding this two years ago; he doesn't believe me. I think the cure may well be getting him a job as a roadie with that or some other band. In any case, I expect that he's going to show up in June after graduation, and we'll need to find something for him to do around here this summer.
They all left about 3 pm this afternoon, as they had other relatives to go see. Already it seems way too quiet. It was a good holiday.
This morning, I was up early as usual, and #2Son was right with me. We had established the night before that he couldn't actually wake anyone up until 7 am. He was already into the NASA countdown by 6:15. Fortunately we have a standing rule that's it's okay to get into one's stocking as soon as one gets up, so that held him off for quite a while. My nephew (age 17) got up around 6:45, and they had fun sharing what was in their stockings while waiting for the rest of the family to emerge.
Between 7:15 and 8:30, it seemed that the presents had exploded. Fortunately it was pretty clear who had gotten what. My mom got matching sweaters for me and my sister - maroon cardigans with candy cane and Christmas tree and similar appliques. I was somewhat dismayed until I remembered a co-worker is planning one of those Ugly Sweater days...this is perfect for that. I mentioned that and Mom got offended. My sister fortunately backed me up; she had been planning a quiet gift exchange. We spent some time discussing how, when shopping, Mom falls back into the pattern of thinking she has the daughters she *wanted*, who might have appreciated such sweaters, rather than the daughters she got. That seemed to lighten the atmosphere some. We then spent much of the morning playing Apples to Apples Jr., first with #2Son, and then on our own, as #2Son went off to build his Bionicle toys.
#1Son got a new Zelda game for the GameCube; he is plugged in and will probably have to have the controllers surgically removed in order to go to bed. And tomorrow the rationing starts: He has to produce results toward finishing his homework for the break in order to earn more game time. Protests are bound to ensue....
We spent quite a bit of time harranguing my niece for being a lump; not getting a job, not going to college, not doing anything. I was all for my sister just leaving her here, and I would get her into the local community college and at least get her out of her comfort zone, but that didn't happen. Hopefully the conversation helped some; after a lot of digging, she admitted to wanting to be like Paris Hilton (I think she was thinking it would shock me), but I seized on that and pointed out that Paris Hilton had A) already gone to college; B) was a business woman before almost anything else, because she had to be able to at least know enough to hire good accountants and business managers to keep track of her income and investments; C) might go out to the clubs at night, but pretty surely spent her *days* either on RealityTV sets or in meetings. If she wants to aspire to be Paris Hilton, great; Step One is to go to college. I told my sister to get her a bus ticket if she didn't go enroll at their local community college on January 4.
My nephew is due to graduate in June, and thinks he wants to go to the U of Michigan. I'm not so sure about that; I think the U might swallow him whole. However, it's pretty clear he needs to be in an extremely liberal college town. Since we (as a family) can't afford Antioch or Oberlin, it will have to be Ann Arbor or Kalamazoo. He is more amenable to going to college than his sister is; I think he grasps that college is the main route to avoiding a job in the Fast Food industry.
His downfall is that he is infatuated with the band, Insane Clown Posse. This is sort of over-the-top bad rap-influenced not-music-to-my-way-of-thinking thrashing on stage. I had a discussion of marketing with him regarding this two years ago; he doesn't believe me. I think the cure may well be getting him a job as a roadie with that or some other band. In any case, I expect that he's going to show up in June after graduation, and we'll need to find something for him to do around here this summer.
They all left about 3 pm this afternoon, as they had other relatives to go see. Already it seems way too quiet. It was a good holiday.