Christmas Options

[Soulseeker3.0]

Hey what are all you gonna do with Christmas (if you celebrate it)?

I'm going to see family Christmas day....

[Kindred Spirit]

Well, my Christmas was...interesting.

First I went to my Aunt's house, it was way too crowded. She isn't even my Aunt, more like my dad's step aunt or something like that, but for whatever reason, the entire extended family that lives in a fifty mile radius goes there for Christmas Eve. The house is way, way, too small for that. Basically, I went into the basement for most of it, stayed out of the way, came up for dinner, ate downstairs, came up again for the presents. I got a gift certificate for a bookstore. Then I went back downstairs, avoided speaking more than five words in a row the entire time I was there.

After that, we went to my grandmother's house, opened presents with my grandmother, my father and his girlfriend, my uncle and his girlfriend, my aunt and her husband, and my siblings and myself. There, I got a very cool DVD player that I can't use because it won't plug into my TV so it goes in another TV that it will work on (my tv is old, like 80's old, so it goes on the videogame TV that isn't far from my bedroom), a pair of gloves (I don't wear gloves), a pair of pillows (not as lame as it might sound, my pillows were about as soft and fluffy as a pile of paper), a gift certificate and a set of headphones. The headphones were awesome, reflective in the back, the wires are inside of strongs to protect them, and these headphones are very comfortable and cool, so these were my favorite present. (with the exception of the pillows when I'm feeling tired) My aunt made a good point about my birthday. My birthday is in a few days, so she pointed out that when I turn 21(legal drinking age here), two days later is the biggest drinking day of the year. (New Year's Eve) What a great birthday present that'll be, huh?

Both of those Christmas parties were good enough. Nobody was overly annoying. Then we went home, went to sleep. In the morning, we opened presents with my dad. I got a 4 foot blacklight and that that awesome MP3 player. (which I was wrong about the name of it, got confused with the one we didn't get. We got the Siren MP3 player.) I also got a CD for a band called Celldweller (for some odd reason, nobody seems to have heard of them, despite the fact that every single one of their songs has been liscensed out to various movies and games, most of them fairly wellknown) and a very cool flashlight. The flashlight gets power by the magnet inside sliding through an electromagnet, creating electricity. And it doesn't use a conventional bulb, this one shouldn't even need being replaced, so basically, this should be the last flashlight I ever need. (Doubt it, somehow. If if sounds too good to be true, it probably is.) I also got a 4-pack of computer games. (Civilization 2, Age of Empires Gold Edition, Risk 2, and Majesty the Fantsy Kingdom Sim Gold Edition)

Then we went to our mother's house. I got a 15-in-1 game table, a broken remote control car (from my brother), a ball attached to an elastic string (also from my brother), a pack of rubber bouncy balls (from my sister) two gift certificates, and a couple shirts. One of the shirts was a cool blue fleece, the other an ugly blue and orange light long sleeve shirt. My brother got, for his expensive present, an electric guitar and an amp, while my sister got a karaoke machine. Both loud and annoying.

Then we went to my aunt's house (different aunt than the one from before), which was pure torture. I had to listen to my sister sing on her karaoke machine, alongside one of my cousins. My cousin got more and more drunk as the night went by, so the singing got progressively worse and worse. Meanwhile, my brother hasn't had much practice on his guitar yet, and with the amp cranked, that got as annoying as the singing. A couple of people, including my mother, started playing poker, and that game lasted untill past midnight, although they started not long after dinner. And even that was only because my mom had to lose on purpose because she had to get home. At various points throughout the night, I got talked (lectured, preached) to by various older relatives in various states of being spaced out. Most of them got good and drunk (my grandfather alone finished a twelvepack, the rest all had a couple plus plenty of wine), whereas my grandmother swalloed her entire bottle of painkillers. So all these people had to lecture me for various things, mostly yelling at me for not being social. (I had, by this point, spent two days straight with family, and I hadn't gone to sleep in between, so I was far, far more anti-social than usual, which is quite a lot) Other than that, they tried to make me get my hair cut (not going to happen, I like my hair the way it is, and if I want it cut, I'll either do it myself, or go to a freakin' hair parlor, there's two near my house, so if I wanted my hair cut, it would be cut), and I got yelled at quite a bit for "ruining the Christmas spirit." (ie, not being a happy idiot) For presents here, I got a winter hat (I don't wear winter hats) and Gothic 2 gold edition. (which was pretty cool) Then, after hearing my mother yell at me the whole way home, she finally started yelling again as we got to my father's house, because the plan was and had been for me to stay there, and he was gone, out with friends. I stayed there anyways.

Anyway, that was my Christmas. Not too bad, especially regarding the gifts I got, which I liked, but family parties have definately gone better. (Usually when my mother's had a bad day earlier, and drinks enough that she forgets I'm there)