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My family was planning on going to Delaware to visit my aunt for Christmas.  She hadn’t been feeling well leading up to today so I had purchased Christmas dinner parts just in case.  Then, at 9 AM, word came down that we were staying put.

Dad: Well, we’re not going to your aunt’s.  Where do you want to go instead?  Everywhere will probably be crowded.
Me: I will make dinner.
Dad: You?
Me: Yes.
Dad: Ok, I guess we should go get a turkey…
Me: No, my terms are as follows.  I will pay for, prepare, and clean up after dinner with the understanding that I have full control over the menu and I get the kitchen to myself for four uninterrupted hours.
Dad: What are you planning on making?
Me: Bacon-crusted roast pork, turkey tenderloin, mash potatoes from a box as god intended them, an assortment of cheese and crackers, truffles, a raspberry tart, crescent rolls, and possibly a soup.
Dad: Are you sure we can’t have a whole turk…
Me: Those are my terms, they are non-negotiable.
Dad: You’ve thought about this.
Me: For five years, yes.
Dad: What if I pay for the…
Me: No whole turkey.
Dad: What about drinks?
Me: Christmas will be BYOB.
Dad: Deal.
Me: Lovely to work with you, now get out of my kitchen.

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My mother hosted Christmas this year and my mother’s sister and her husband were there in addition to my brother’s fiance on top of the Robinson Four.  The order of the evening was to quickly get buzzed and begin the airing of disdain for the rest of humanity.  If the purpose of a grace is to unify the gathered eaters behind an idea than this years was “Oprah, I hate that shit”.  In addition to this, the nature of old was revealed to me:

Uncle: Terry, you’ll learn that as you age you just don’t care.  If Mike Vic were on my fantasy football team, I’d say those dogs asked for it.

I also learned the curious fact that my aunt has no fingerprints.  She attempted to re-register for her alien registration card, they found she had no finger prints, and they told her to come back in a week like the fingerprint fairy is going to appear and grand her whorls, ridges, and valleys about her digits.

Merry Christmas

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Today was the company Christmas party which followed some sort of high level meeting meaning many of the higher ups were in suits with stupid Christmas ties resulting in a look appropriate for what I’ll call “execu-caroling”.  My fellow technicians and I walked to the cafeteria and were buffeted with mediocre singing from a volunteer choir and one of their voices cut through the air like a knife.   He was a fellow with whom I worked many years ago who had fast-tracked through the company and many of us felt he lost his humanity along the way, it appears he also lost his singing ability.

The food itself was presentable and last year’s “Foods of the World” served by executives in a heated outdoor tent was replaced with chicken fingers and questionable seafood that was self-served inside our cafeteria.  A somber and half-cheerful speech was delivered by our executive and we tooled around after.  The party really got started when I started losing vision in my let eye and became very sweaty and lost some fine muscle control.  I’m pretty sure it was the shrimp but I hope this doesn’t portent a future tactic of using food-borne illness to winnow the weak from the company.  If so, I’m willing to go to Taco Bell for however long it takes to build up immunity.  Carpe chalupum.

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My brother diplomatically hosted Christmas.  He prepared a spiral ham that was ok.  I prepared a smore brownie that was ok.  Everyone drank wine that was ok (except for me, who had sparking white grape juice that was ok).  We exchanged gifts that were ok (I got a GPS that was ok) and listened to music that was ok with people that were ok.  Considering my loathing of these get-togethers and how low my standards have been ground, I had an awesome Christmas.

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Most rituals of American Christmas were outsourced to one our tenants’ girlfriends.  She decorated the tree, purchased a poinsettia, and even set up stockings.  Today, she filled those stockings but with only two items: candy canes and wet wipes.  Either she was never able to master the tactic of slowly removing the wrapping as one finishes the candy cane or doesn’t think we have.  I suppose an alternative is her simply thinking us pigs, also reasonable.

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My father and I eat very well on long weekends as I have time to prepare proper meals.  I made a Santa Fe stew which takes about 10 hours to prepare, most of which is stewing, and left it in the crock pot for a self-serve dinner.  I ate before my dad and came down to see him feeding a portion of his stew to the dog.

Me: Problem with the stew?
Dad: No, I just thought Max would enjoy the black beans more than I would.
Me: Traitor, I spent my youth dodging my mortal enemy, green beans forced upon me by my mother and here I see you feeding beans to the dog.  Turncoat!
Dad: No, it was your mother, and I hated her beans too, but before you were born she switched from green beans to black beans if I complained.  I was exchanging one thing I hated for another.
Me: Touche.  If we go over mom’s for Christmas and she prepares beans and you say anything about me not eating them you’re going to have six months of black beans when I get fired.
Dad: Deal.

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Christmas went well.  I woke at 1 AM, took a walk, read, shot people, and prepared for a new day.  About 7:30 AM I prepared breakfast, then spend 2 hours waiting for someone to wake up. I opted not to roust the house with slamdancing and assumed the scent of delectable breakfast meats would do.  Apparently sausage doesn’t waft as well as one would anticipate.  At 10 AM gifts were exchanged and by 10:02 my father and I were done and watched the love-match between my brother and his girlfriend take turns out-gifting one another.  Somewhere in the middle my brother got a really nice miter saw.  He doesn’t really use or need one, but should he, he’ll have a really nice one at the ready.  In other news I think my brother won Christmas, but I suspect him of cheating as Amanda pitched in on the tiebreaking decorative bench.

My single gift request for 2008 was a new speaker set for my computer and received the Logitech Z-5500 set.  I thought they’d be much smaller and found of the 55 lb package that 54 lbs was the sub woofer.  This fucker’s HUGE with a warning label cautioning not to use it within 2 feet of magnetically sensitive devices like pacemakers or credit cards (or simply ‘electronics’ as they put it).  It has an air intake for it’s turbocharger (I assume that’s what it is) big as my fist and fat heat-sink.  I’m confident I could sit on it while playing whale songs or something equally bassy and ride the thing like a hovercraft.  Alternatively, sneak it into Bestbuy and play Foreplay by Boston and permanently magnetize every CRT and erase every hard drive there.   I can now hear entire instruments that I could make out before like the “bones” in Great Big Seas Rant and Roar album or the wicked Bonnie Rait-inspired slide guitar opening to Appalachian Spring; true story.

My brother asked why I had the speakers on when I wore headphones while playing Team Fortress 2.  The answer: With the headphones, I can hear my enemies.  With the speakers, I can feel them.

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My mother wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas.  I asked for a 1/2 sheet pan-sized sealable carrier to which she responded “I love those”.  My mother doesn’t bake and I don’t think she has used a 1/2 sheet pan since a failed 5th grade attempt to bring in sugar cookies for a Christmas party.

My father went to her house to drop something off and I had him do some recon.  So instead of this:

1/2 Sheet Pan Carrier

1/2 Sheet Pan Carrier, yeah!

I’m getting this:

Frown

Cake Mold Seized from Carthage, boo!

Well at least I can make bundt cakes appropriate for Vikings.

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Two years running I’ve broken the tape measure I received for Christmas.  Most recently I broke the one given to me by my brother’s girlfriend Amanda.  I got her a day-to-day calendar which she’s obviously exhausted.  If I can keep up breaking her gifts we may have figured out a solute to the problem of buying for a family member’s significant other.

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I WON CHRISTMAS!  How?  Every year my brother and I have a gift giving duel over my father, he being or provider we kinda go nuts.  I planned this time, staked out deals during Black Friday, took out extra money as a “student loan” and today I struck.  We began with small arms, wallet, he returned with BB gun ammo.  I escalated to shoes and two pair of jeans and he returned with a BB gun.  Then the big guns, he presented a new slip differential cover and he looked at me cockily when the paper came off the 20″ LCD TV FOR THE KITCHEN!!!  Now he can watch Victory at Sea and other 1950s movies in colors that hadn’t been invented yet.  And with that, I proved that I was a better son by spending more money.  If money can’t buy love, what can?