If I haven't told you before, I'll tell you now my family is totally weird. OK maybe not weird just really lazy. You see we as a family do not celebrate Christmas like normal families. Many of you gathered on the traditional Christmas Eve or even Christmas Day. We celebrate either the week before or the week after (usually the lather) because no one wants to leave their home or travel for the holiday.
Now I don't have an incredibly large family. In fact it's just my parents, 3 older sisters all with husbands and 2 of those sisters have children (5 nieces in total ranging from ages 5 to 21). All of my extended family is living in Europe except for my cousin Sandra who is living here with her husband and 2 kids. All of us are within 150 miles of each other. So what is the big fuss about getting together? I mean back in the day I remember my parents hosting ALL the holidays. They even took in any friends of ours who couldn't make it home to their families as if they were part of own.
I think it started about 5 years ago when my sister Patti was about to have her 2nd child. You see Kathy already had 3 kids by this point and was living upstate in a large home that would accommodate us all for the holiday. I think it was the combination of my sister's in-laws (both Kathy's and Patti's) wanting some holiday time and the fact that Patti would have to be taking her 2 small children from Queens to upstate NY. For a while we had worked out some holiday exchange where we did one holiday (Christmas or Thanksgiving) and the in-laws had the other. Then it was just that no one wanted to leave their house on or around Christmas (I think they were using the kids as an excuse so they can be at home to see what Santa has brought them).
So now we celebrate when it's totally inconvenient for say ME the only single family member with no children. This year everyone agree to have Christmas on the 31st. YES New Years Eve! Not even taking into consideration that I have to work the next day and that I might have plans for something fun that night. Oh and to top it all off we use to do a Kris Kringle exchange where we would get one awesome thing. Since we don't meet for Thanksgiving anymore we don't pick names anymore and now are back to the little gifts like candles and picture frames. The only thing I can look forward to for the holidays is winning some cash from the family when we play Left Right Center.
