Well we survived too. The big family Christmas was at Grandpa's. Pretty weird since he's pretty much out of it (85, long time diabetic, poor eyesight, poor hearing, has lost much of his motor skills). I visit weekly to load pills, clean, and take him to town for lunch/shopping. So I suggested we do pizza at his house (since we hosted last year the other choice were pizza at my brother's family home near Dad's place). Worked out OK. We got there a bit later than I wanted and the house was a bigger mess than normal, but the pizza was good (and a nice break from turkey/ham/sweet potatoes and all that holiday fare).
We ended up burying Dad with presents (the youngest kid in the family is 15, so we've drawn a gift truce and just do money for the kids and no adult presents). Ironically I've been pitching tons of crap from the house for the past 2 years and he needed stuff (all things I'd suggested from my visits and cleaning). Now he just needs a maid and for us to take the car keys away.
Next we hightailed it back home so wifey could prepare Christmas dinner for our whole blended family. A much more traditional holiday setting with real Christmas food, presents, tree, and roaring fireplace. We've cleaned up from most of that so that wifey's oldest son and wife can come back tonight/tomorrow to spend a couple of days (to use as a base camp while visiting family/friends while they're here from out of state). The other invasion of privacy is wifey's middle son's girl friend (he's normally at college out of state) who comes over unannounced all hours of the day and night. I stopped counting how many times she has seen me in PJ's, but it still annoys me. But I got some nice gifts, including 2 Latin jazz CD's, a Houston Person CD, and a Diana Krall Live from Rio DVD (thank you Amazon wish listing).
