Not the most Silent of Nights

Everyone has their gripes and grunts about family time during the holidays, but my daughter has already taught me the value of patience and keeping your sense of humor handy. Even if it is retarded to experience, someone will laugh about it later. Go ahead, slap those knees.

*A side note to the Bean, should she read this in the future: You slept through all of this. Not to worry, these events will not scar you for life. Next year, you may not get off so easily, but this year, you were zonked.

Because my in-laws insist that the family must somehow be in each other's presence for every holiday on the calendar (and sometimes not on the calendar), we spent this Christmas Eve having a "traditional Polish dinner" in a hotel suite off the Beltway in Towson. Now, it isn't entirely my fault that we were sharing a holiday in a hotel with Handsome's family, but I will accept some of the blame. I would have offered up my place to convene, but Handsome argued that we just don't have the room (which we don't), and that we couldn't handle the cleanup with a newborn. My sister-in-law flat out refused to host anything at her house. So there you have it...hotel it is.

To her credit, my MIL decorated the suite to present a holiday theme, complete with plastic Christmas plates and utensils. To her credit, the Parental In-Laws did pull together a holiday meal in a hotel suite. To her credit, we were all sufficiently buzzed from champagne before she made us sing "Silent Night" in place of the usual "grace" before chowing down. I tried not to giggle, but I did. I blamed it on the champagne. I should have blamed the "are you kidding me???" comment on the champagne too, but thankfully, everyone seemed to let that go.

After trying to choke down several bites of various kinds of fish (I HATE fish - in all forms) and scarfing down several biscuits in an attempt to fill up my belly, the MIL decided to lay her Christmas wish on me: That she would like Handsome and I to give her more grand babies. Handsome immediately retaliated with the announcement that he would be having a vasectomy in 2006 (news to me, until I figured out that I was to play along). After the many protests out of the MIL, I told her not to worry, because I wanted to adopt in the future, a situation much like Angelina Jolie's family...I wanted to adopt the next Zahara.

I swear, I think I saw a blood vessel burst in the left eye.

But that conversation was at least laid to rest for the hour. It resurfaced a few times, but at least everyone was drunk enough to let it go without such dramatics from my team.

After dinner, opening our stocking gifts was next on the agenda. Now, just note that stocking gifts were my most favorite part of Christmas before sharing it with Handsome's family. Now this pastime fave has become a torture...the individually wrapped stuffers have to be opened ONE AT A TIME, and the majority of these items were give-a-ways that MIL picked up at conventions throughout the year. Stress balls, mini packs of m-n-ms with advertisements for drug companies on them, mini flashlights, key rings...I didn't get it. I still don't get it. At least my two-year old nephew enjoyed stealing all the flashlights and the stress balls for his own private agenda. We certainly didn't put up any complaints about our stocking gifts being shoved into his pockets. I would not let the fold-up comb/mirror combo slip away in his hands, though. That one was my keeper. And in all fairness, I did score a Starbucks giftcard in the frenzy as well, which would have been enough stocking stuffer for me at square one.

Christmas Day involved a lot of driving, and in the pouring rain, no less. Out to the suburbs to meet up once again with in-laws and then another round of pre-planned gift opening time slots, and then we were on our way to a friend's house for Christmas dinner. Again, more rain, and a perfectly timed phone call requesting that we stop, on Christmas Day, to get 6 C batteries for a grandson's toy.

Getting batteries of any shape or size on Christmas Day was no easy task, but for $15, you can get almost anything you want in Baltimore's ghetto. Even on Christmas. Aside from being yelled at by a fat cop for my poor parking job while Handsome went on the scavenger hunt through the seedy Rite Aid, we were victorious and still made it to the set dinner time.

And Christmas dinner was amazing. A-MAZE-ZING. Good friends, good food, good family, good baby. Good.

Little could we all know that a virus lurked beneath the surface of one of our skins, and we soon would all be sharing its violent nature. I am talking hands-down, smack you in the gut until you cry for your Momma, praying to God for relief kind of flu. The kind of sickness that rips away your dignity...you stop caring about what your spouse thinks of your attractiveness level as you puke on the floor of the hallway and then slide in it minutes later when trying to get up. Or throwing up into the closest thing that can count for a bucket near the couch, like the plastic bag containing some of your convention-style stocking gifts. Or that I puked so violently at one point that I also peed all over my festive monkey-with-candy-canes pajamas.
But it was a memorable holiday, perfectly mixed with tender and frantic and insane moments. What other kind of holiday magic is there?

And another note to the Bean - when you are old enough to start remembering all this, it was you who taught your Dad and I to keep our humor up, so you had better retain that sense of irony or we are in big trouble.