Christmas was such a blur! Only wee bits of it remain in the whacky alternate cosmos that is my brain. The stupid bits remained, while the important one’s dissipated into an alcohol based egg nog.
It all started Christmas eve. I arrived at my grandmothers house fashionably late with presents in hand. As soon as I walked in the door, the Marylanders began berating me with wave after wave of comments and questions about Ireland.
Why aren’t you in Ireland? You chickened out, right? If I wanted to, I could do it, they’d say. What happen’ to the gurl you were dating last year? Are ya ‘tupid? How come ya can’t keep a woman more than a few months?
It was all in good craic. In my family, if the other family members constantly aggravate you, then they really..really like you. Crazy family!!!
“Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee, here comes………..”, my father hollered whilst parading through the entrance like a superstar.
He set the presents down and handed my almost two year old sister off to sister number two. We shook hands and proceeded to grip like we’d never gripped before. Every single time we see each other, we go through this traditional handshake that is really like putting one’s hand in a vice. Whoever can hold out the longest without giving or breaking a knuckle, wins!
He won this time, but only because he cheated by twisting my knuckles in such a way that they stated to grand against each other. Yikes! 
After bulling around with the Marylanders and wishing my grandmother a Merry Christmas, I headed to a friends house to watch a movie or two.
Before I knew it, we had watched two incredible 80’s movies and knocked back a bit too much egg nog. I went home and tried to catch some much needed shut eye.
At 2AM, I realised that I had not wrapped some presents. So, I stayed up the rest of the night wrapping presents and reinstalling windows on my desktop. Oh yes, I forgot to mention the hard drive failure, which caused me to lose a lot of files! We’re talking head to platter failure!
Christmas morning, I met my mother at my sisters house to give gifts to my nephew. I got quite a few of my own! I have never seen a lad so enamoured by a skateboard with lettering on it that only a hardcore skater can comprehend. My sister is mad about frogs, so I took one of my coveted shots of a bullfrog and put it in a frame for her. She was thrilled!
Later that day, we went to my other grandmothers for Christmas lunch. It’s always a grand occasion. It’s never as tense as Thanksgiving. Everyone ate way to much. My Uncle went on about his holiday in Florida. He showed off pictures that he had taken at sunset on the beach. My mother got irritated and demanded that my sister go get the picture that I took and framed for her. It was quite humorous.
Anyhew, I showed my uncle how to tweak his images in Photoshop. He was quite amazed at how I can make a picture pop with clarity and colour.
I ended the day on my hands and knees installing base and quarter round moulding around the perimeter of my kitchen. I put in the last bit of new wood flooring today. I believe that I’ve caught the remodeling bug. Kitchen counters and sink are next!
