Bah! Humbug!

I haven't posted anything for several days as I'm getting more and more frustrated with this Christmas stuff. I have had some difficulty in getting into it anyway as I won't have but the least amount of time off to even celebrate Christmas and in the last week or so it has gotten doubly difficult as my wife is determined it's going to be the way she wants it come hell or high water. She has even gone to the point of moving little decorations I have laid around the house to a point she wants them. The house is decorated as she wants it, we are spending the little bit of time off we have with her relatives (two out of four days), and now I learn yesterday that we are having Christmas dinner at our house even though I had specificially said I did not want to do that because of two things. And, rather than a traditional meal, her and Mom decided we'd just eat sandwiches so no one would have to bother with a real meal.

First, her sister and her husband (and their two out of control kids) always show up late. Then her kids ransack our house while their parents sit there and talk never saying a word to their little darlings. They bang on my wife's expensive Yamaha piano and play on her expensive organ. They bang toys on our nice wood and glass coffee and end tables. All this while their parents sit on their rumps and watch. Then, if we say anything to their darlings they get pissed. They run up and down the stairs and then to add insult to injury, end up not wanting to eat anything we have as they don't like it. The second reason is that the last time we did something like this it was a Thanksgiving. Everyone piled in our house made a big mess and left as soon as they could leaving us with the mess. This is with the exception of the brother-in-law and sister-in-law who hung around to make even more and bigger messes every time we cleaned up the kitchen and dining room. I swore then we would never do this at our house again.

The bottom line is I'm ready for Christmas to be over. I have had trouble getting into the Christmas spirit because of the domination of my wife and it's still two weeks before the fact. I can only imagine how it's going to be for the remainder of the season.