I munched on chips and dip and magic cookie bars. Calvin popped into the living room about every half hour or so, taking a break from playing some computer game of Michael's. I made several comments to the observation of the sheer volume of characters that die in the story. After David Copperfield, I finished the book I was reading ("In the Country of the Young", by Lisa Carey, which was excellent. I'm on "Last Seen in Massilia" by Steven Saylor, now), which brought me up to 5:00pm. Calvin and I took a shower together, the kids came home briefly to open the traditional "Christmas Eve Gift", then were off again to a maternal aunt's. Calvin and I went on a beer run, then came home and fixed the leftover lobsters, potato soup, and rice for dinner. We lingered and chatted and sipped wine (well, I did - Calvin's a beer man), and watched the ferret's antics as she "keh-keh-keh'ed" her way around the house, gaining a little freedom after several days of pent-upness. Now Calvin and I are both in the computer room; he's playing a game, I'm writing this entry, and we're waiting for the kids to get back. 80's music playing in the background (Phil Collins' "Land of Confusion" right now). A glass of wine at my side.
Bliss. Pure, unadulterated bliss.
Doing nothing was just about all I was good for, after yesterday's "Christmas Dinner Extravaganza" with all of Calvin's relations. The older sister, her husband, and three children. The younger sister, her husband, and four children. Calvin's mom, step-dad, uncle, and cook from Calvin's mom's restaurant. The aforementioned friend of mine, with her daughter and another friend, AB. Calvin's grandmother and grandfather. Calvin's sister's boss with her son. Michael, his girlfriend, Marie, Calvin, and myself.Let me just pause right here to indulge in a heartfelt "holy shit".
We finished up all our cleaning tasks with about two hours to spare before we anticipated folks coming over. My Thursday and Friday saw me a cooking fool, making fudge and cookie bars and potato soup, plus meatloaf for dinner (and lunch sandwiches). We're $350 poorer as a result of several trips to the grocery store for "fillers" - beer, port wine cheddar and crackers, pickles and olives for a tray, tons of butter for melting, sour cream and dip mix... plus the main stuff we were serving for dinner. The lobsters showed up at 11:00 Saturday morning, courtesy of UPS. Strangely enough, I didn't take a picture of the suckers. Which goes to prove my state of mind that day.
Nothing was left but to wait. I started snapping pictures. I didn't even have to twist Calvin's arm to wear the hat. He was totally into this whole "entertaining the family" thing. Apparently he never had the opportunity, or didn't feel comfortable, in entertaining while with X(f). Which fact was pointed out to me several times by his sister, K. His family has been so completely welcoming of my inclusion into it (his grandparents keep asking when we're getting married - heh). I just adore all of them. It's hugely important to me to feel like I belong. I still have my twinges, my feeling that I should keep a certain distance. But it's diminishing.
Anyhoo! The first to arrive was Michael's girlfriend, who promptly disappeared into Michael's room. They emerged about twenty minutes later, and she gifted the family with AMC movie gift certificates. By far the sweetest girlfriend of Michael's so far. Calvin's younger sister and family arrived next. They brought a huge tray of veggies and cheese, with the clever idea of filling green and red pepper halves with ranch dressing for dipping. We gave them the tour of the finally-completed house ("next tour leaves in 15 minutes!"), and her youngest son (two, I believe) ran around screaming like a banshee and slamming doors. The trend continued. All evening. Our friend AM and her daughter arrived next, bearing wine (YES!) and sparkling cider for the kids, and chips and soda. I hung onto her like a lifeline, feeling periodically shy around Calvin's family and needing to base myself again. She was a huge help, being familiar with the house enough to provide directions and instructions to the relatives asking "Where is this, that, and the other thing?". She kept getting trapped, though, by Calvin's weird uncle. All evening. Poor thing. ~grin~
The older sister and her family arrived next (Calvin's the oldest, followed by K, and then M). She brought a pumpkin roll which I never did get to taste, darn it. They were immediately followed by Calvin's mom, step-dad and uncle, who brought along their roasted chicken, and cole slaw, and steaks. Calvin's mom was so generous in her offers to help, and supply anything that was needed. T, their cook, took charge of the steaks. I'd like to say they turned out well (which I'm sure they did), but they were scarfed up so fast I never got the chance to taste them.
The grandparents came along next, and sweeter, nicer people you'll never meet in your lifetime. They brought along the much needed folding chairs (AM did too, as well as K), and a salad. And a Whole Bunch of LOOT. I swear, in the two years previous which I have been fortunate enough to spend Christmas with these folks, I've never seen as many presents brought to share with the family as I did this year. The "gift giving" ceremony was supposed to be restricted to gifts for the kids, but of course Calvin's mom and grandma cheated and got stuff for the adults, too. We got a candy dish, and I got a box of Avon products, and we got a box of gourmet chocolates. Cool.Last to arrive were Calvin's sister's boss and son, and our friend AB (who got lost looking for the wrong street address - she thought our phone number was our address!). I was so glad they came. They didn't have any other plans (AB especially, being from Norway with all her family back there), and since I remember quite vividly what it's like to spend Christmas alone, I was ecstatic to have them.
Once everyone arrived, that was Calvin and I's signal to start the lobsters. We opened up the box they came in out on the patio. All the kids crowded around, unbelieving that a) the lobsters were still alive, and b) we were actually going to kill them. We put the lobster pots on the outside burners (one from camping, the other on our new grill with built-in burner), and let the kids pick up the live lobsters and drop them in. It was a huge hit. Morbid little tykes. I manned the rice and baking the rolls in the kitchen, while Calvin oversaw the lobsters. They were transferred (three at a time, as that's all we could fit in one pot) to a holding pot on the stove to keep them warm. Everything was done all at once, and we layed everything out on the table for folks to dig in. I was running back and forth, back and forth, between the patio and the kitchen, making sure everyone had everything they needed. I kept warding off offers to help, because really, there wasn't much for anyone else to do. We'd done enough prep before hand, and folks brought so much supplemental stuff, that in the end everything was easy to bring together.
We finally sat down outside on the patio to eat. Calvin and I instructed the novices on how to successfully consume a lobster (as overheard by one of the younger kids - "Daddy, is there a *neat* way to eat lovstuh?"). People came and went, positions at the table were swapped out as folks went to socialize and refill their plates. I had to pause at one point to box up the billiard balls, since the younger kids were using them for some strange game of Pong. But in the end there was plenty of food (even though Cape Porpoise neglected to ship us the 10 pounds of crab claws we ordered, dammit. Third year in a row. What is it with these people and their crab claws, anyway?? Oh, well, at least the 20 lobsters we ordered showed up.), so much that we'll be plowing our way through leftovers for some time. But that translated into me not having to cook today, so it's all good.
Throughout this time, the kids kept coming up to me and asking when were were going to open presents. "After everyone's done eating," I'd reply. Finally, we all were. We cleaned up the patio and transferred all the dirty dishes (not too many, since we used paper plates, etc.) into the kitchen. K and I layed a couple of indian blankets out on the floor for the kids to sit on, and we called everyone to attention. Grandpa sat in a chair next to the tree and read the story of Christ's birth from the Bible. After that he said a lovely prayer, getting choked up in the end while expressing his gratitude for such a beautiful family. I almost lost it, I swear. Marie and I were standing near him, arms around each other and heads together as he prayed. She was holding the ferret, too, and it kept nibbling on my fingers at her shoulder. We all said a solemn "Amen."Then the chaos began.
Doling out presents is a tricky thing. We give one present to each child, and admonish them to wait to open it until each child has one. Since we had (counting...) twelve kids, this was quite the exercise. "We need one for X..." "Does Y have one yet?" "Wait, wait, wait!" Then a flurry of ripping, tossed paper, bows everywhere, exclamations of "Oh!" and "Thanks, Grandma!" and "Hey, do I get another one?" and "Aw-RIGHT!" Whew. Calvin took pictures, I handed the gifts to K, who handed them to the kids. It took us a good 45 minutes to get through all the loot. Such a generous family.
By this time I was wilting. I admit it. All the anticipation, preparation, running around, and anxiety was beginning to tell on me. I got one last, final shot of all the kids (well, almost all of them - they wouldn't stay still long enough), and then folks started wrapping things up. Hugs were exchanged, and Calvin and I received a great many compliments on the success of the evening. Folks started filtering out, taking gifts and leftovers (and leaving all the torn wrapping and trash). By 8:00, it was just Calvin, me, the kids, and our friend AM and her daughter, who were spending the night. I kept puttering around for the next half-hour or so, picking up cups and paper towels, and putting away leftovers. Finally, I changed into my jammies, poured a big (okay, HUGE) glass of wine, and we all settled down to watch "X-Men". I'd seen it before, and I think it's a cool movie.The funniest part came at about 10:00. That morning, I had received a phone call from my former boss at AcronymCo, asking if I could take care of her cat while she went to Iowa for the holidays. I agreed, and told her I'd stop by her house at around 8:00 to pick up the key and get instructions.
I totally brain farted.
At 10:00 she called asking where I was. Well, I was one hell of a busy day and two (big) glasses of wine into the evening, is where I was. I asked her if she could leave the key under her mat, or in the wheel well of her truck for me to get in the morning. It isn't, after all, the first time (nor probably the last time) that I've taken care of her cat. She didn't feel comfortable with that, though. So she decided to drop off the key (after several pointed questions of "you're *sure* you're able to do this?" - as if I'd forget about the stupid cat) that evening. Actually, she pulled up out front and had her 75-ish year old mother bring the key up. Her mom is such a sweetheart of a lady. While I could tell that ex-boss was trying to get a point across by not coming to the door (and who the hell cares, *I* don't work for her (thank gawd) anymore), her mom was full of apologies for the short notice and interruption of our evening.
We all went to bed after the movie, woke up to a skillet breakfast, and that brings you all up to date on how my Christmas is going so far. Tomorrow sees the kids off to their maternal grandfather's for breakfast, and then they're home again so we can volunteer at the Salvation Army's dinner for the homeless, and then we have roast for dinner and open presents.
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I've neglected you all for a few days, and I'm truly sorry for that. I hope you are all having a wonderful, wonderful holiday. These last couple of months have brought me in contact with some charming, warm, friendly folks. I list that among the things I am grateful this holiday season.
Be safe, be joyous, and be very happy. My family's love and prayers go out to you and yours, today and every day.