Christmas at our house

If you have a niece, and she marries someone ( a male in this case), what relation is her husband to you? If said husband is known to behave better when he’s drunk, should you administer a breathalyzer test before allowing him into the family gathering on Christmas Eve?

The niece in question has lupus. She wasn’t even supposed to be able to get pregnant, but someone managed to have two boys, now ages 3 and 7. She has been on prednisone for the lupus, and this caused her to swell up and appear chubby. She is now off the medication and really looks terrific. So this individual she married started picking a fight with her at our house on Christmas Eve, saying she needed to lose weight, start going to the gym, that sort of thing. Her mother, Kathy’s sister, spoke up for her daughter, reminding him that she is sick. He decided to leave, oddly wishing everyone a Merry Christmas as he went out the door.

The same group of people will be back at our house on New Year’s Eve. We considered inviting only our niece and her children, but realized we couldn’t do that without making her life even more difficult, so everyone is invited.

Since I don’t drink, it never occurred to me to buy beer for the party. I forgot that the nephew-in-law or whatever he is likes beer. Kathy and her sisters drink wine, so there was plenty of that. We think he acted like that because he was unwillingly sober. Maybe with a few beers in him he will sit quietly and not bother anyone.

Christmas Eve Mass was a lot of fun. I was the lector and I had finally memorized the readings for the day. When I walked into the sacristy, the pastor said, “John, why don’t you read this instead?” and changed the readings on me. Of course, he likes to read the traditional Christmas gospel and he didn’t change that. I ran down into the basement of the church and practiced the new readings about five or six times, asked the Holy Spirit for help, and then had a great time with the new readings when the time came.

After Mass this woman came up and told me very excitedly how she loves when I do the readings and then I recognized her as someone who used to live in the parish, but who moved away years ago. She never tells us she’s coming, and she is always leaving town within hours of seeing us at Mass. One Christmas Eve I didn’t know she was there until I was at the ambo do the readings and saw her in the congregation. Maybe we’re not the sort of friends people want to see when they come to town once a year. Or, however many times she comes, because we really don’t know.

The kids loved their toys. Our grandson loves things that shoot, to his father’s horror, so when he opened some innocuous toy that blasted little rockets for maybe six inches , he spent the rest of the night playing with that, ignoring everything and everyone else.

Contrary to Kathy’s fears, the dog did not wreck the Christmas tree after all. He is fairly indifferent to it, and did not knock off all the low hanging ornaments with his tail, as she had predicted.

Since I was off work all week, I’ve been cleaning the house, picking one trouble spot each day and straightening it out. Today’s target is my computer desk.

So how was your Christmas?