Christmas - Come and Gone

I suppose I should give the annual holiday roundup of what transpired over Christmas but it was actually fairly uneventful. As we had it planned, my MIL and Gerd would be coming over on Christmas Eve for coffee and cake and gift opening, B and I would be alone all day on 1st Christmas Day as my MIL and Gerd would be going over to crazy Aunt Gabi and milquetoast Uncle Gerald's house, and then 2nd Christmas Day would see the return of my MIL and Gerd for another rousing hour or two of coffee and cake.

I am so caked out right now it's not even funny.

Normally we're saddled delighted with the presence of Aunt Gabi and Uncle Gerald but this year our cast of torturers guest list changed and instead of the G & G Show we were treated to Gerd's former son-in-law. By some twist of fate or family disfunction Gerd doesn't get along with his daughter but is still friendly with his former SIL and so SIL came to visit Gerd over Christmas. Perhaps SIL has no family of his own. Or perhaps SIL doesn't get along with his family. After his visit I would bet money on the latter.

They arrived on Christmas Eve around 3:15 and stayed until around 6pm. During that time SIL never shut up. Never. He talked the entire time. I have no real idea of what he said because it was all so boring and pointless I simply didn't bother listening and it wasn't like any of us could interject anything into the conversation anyway. This guy came in, we did our introductions and the race was on. He took a seat opposite B and ran his mouth like a bell clap. There were brief moment were he would pause to shovel in some cake or take a gulp of coffee but else he never let up. Poor B. He truly is a captive audience and had to spend the whole time with this guy zeroed in on him.

Finally even Gerd couldn't bear it any longer and they left and for that I was most grateful because by then my ears were starting to bleed.

First Christmas Day was nice. We watched a lot of movies and towards late evening I called my sister's house to get a report on how their Christmas was going. Evidently, according to the report my sister gave me, my mother was talking too much and my sister wished she would shut up.

You're singing that song to the wrong person, lady! I'll see your incessant rambling and I'll raise you non-stop jabbering by a complete stranger!

Second Christmas Day? Replay of Christmas Eve minus rambling jackass and no present opening. And we had different cake. We did, however, have about a half hour where I had to restrain myself from going up to the neighbors living above me and beating them until they were senseless piles of goo because 2pm on second Christmas Day is when they decided it would be an appropriate time to drill. Jeez-o-flip, I wanted to brain them for that. Golly, I want to know who they got a rental contract from because in mine it says that there will be no drilling on a freaking holiday. It's not just the noise that was irking me - it was the complete lack of respect for everyone living around them. It was a holiday. I don't believe it's beyond reason to expect someone to refrain from drilling in the freaking concrete slab walls for one day. I perhaps should have gone upstairs and asked them to stop but unfortunately I couldn't trust myself enough to simply ask without accompanying it with a few swift kicks in the shin so I just gritted my teeth and rode it out. I thought that having a screaming and possibly kicking match with the neighbors would be worse to do on a holiday than even annoying drilling.

Now that it's the downhill slide to the end of the year I've been immersing myself in knitting and reading. Santa brought me lots of new books and so I'm very happy.