You Ruined Christmas Charlie Brown

Everyone is blogging about Christmas and joy and love and magic and Santa and yadda yadda yadda. My Christmas is going to suck. I just know it. I got word today that since my Brother-In-Law is fresh out of rehab where he's been drying out for the last 5 weeks, there will be no booze on Christmas.

Well Hell.

I don't know about you, but getting liquored up on Christmas is the only way I can get through the day. I love my family, I really do. But the thought of being there all day with all of them cooped up in the house with the thermostat cranked up to Jesus because there is a baby who can't get cold (I'm not sure why its okay to let the rest of us freeze) without a glass of wine or even a damn cup of egg nog to get me through the day just horrifies me.

Christmas is typically unpleasant anyway. After being awakened while it is still dark by my kids, who by the way are too damn old to be waking me up at 5:00am, we go see what Santa brought and open gifts. By the time the gift opening is over, I'm fairly alert. Unlike my Big Sexy. He usually just hangs out on the edge of the fray trying not to succumb to his overwhelming desire to curse out the children for waking him up at 5am. Meanwhile he is expected to watch them make a mess in the living room and he knows that he's going to have to bitch about it being a pig sty for 2 days until I force everyone to put their new clothes away so I can fold up the shirt boxes to use again next year.

We usually try to get a little more shut eye before it is time to go to my mom's for breakfast. We are also usually late for breakfast along with my sister and her family. This in turn causes my mother to go off on to the first of many tirades we are obligated by familial bonds to endure throughout the day. After those of us who don't care enough about her or the trouble she went to making that damn hashbrown casserole we all insist on her making every damn year finally get to the table, we get to the business of eating the best damn hashbrown casserole in the world... and bitching about the fact that Mom refuses to make scrambled eggs for us anymore because Dad's cholesterol is off the charts high. I personally think she uses Dad's health issues as a way of getting out of cooking stuff but that's between her and God.

Then come the gifts. My parents are hard to buy for. They have everything they need. If there is something they want, they can afford it a heck of a lot sooner than I can. So I usually get them booze and a gift card to a semi-nice restaurant. I was told not to get the booze this year. So not only are we not drinking, I'm having to revert back to the days before I realized that my Dad was so much happier with a half-gallon of Crown Royal than he was with another velour robe. So here I am again having to try to figure out which drill bit set my Dad needs and which Chia pet my Mom would like best.

Now the gift exchanging is over and we're all starting to get tired of one another. We can't just go home...dinner is to come and the ham is the best part of my day. But by this time my sister is usually bitching about her mother-in-law/job/neighbors/price of gas (take your pick), it's nap time for my niece but she's too wound up to sleep so she's just walking around with a snot bubble crying for no reason, Mom is bitching about her back hurting because she's been standing at the stove cooking for 3 days, the teenage kids are all fighting over the computer because they have to send all of their MySpace friends a Merry Christmas comment, and all the men have settled in front of the tv to watch some kind of sporting event at full volume. At this point I'm really going to need a cocktail. So is everyone else but are we going to get to have one??

NO! Why? Because my brother-in-law is not a functional alcoholic like the rest if us and now, because he's on the wagon, we all have to be on the wagon.

I just hope my mom doesn't try to stab anyone with a carving knife and my Dad doesn't spend the entire day hiding out in the garage with my Uncle Billy. Of course, if he does seem to be disappearing fairly often, I may have to follow him and spend a little time in the garage myself because anywhere my Dad and Uncle Billy go, so goes the booze.

Bah Humbug everybody.