(no subject)
Dec. 24th, 2006 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI'm working on the holiday pies, which I hope to wrap up here before too terribly long, and then I'll to bed for my long winter's nap.
I hope everyone who's having a holiday tomorrow has a pleasant holiday with family and/or friends, as is appropriate.
Let there be ample food and good cheer. This is a celebration, after all. You're supposed to be having a good time. If it's miserable and everyone's unhappy, why are you doing it?
Let there be a minimum of snarking. That's what all the OTHER times you see the family are for. This time, this time is for being together and not being mean to each other.
Let there be gravy! And stuffing! And pie! Let there be potatoes, mashed and sweet, without anyone flinging same* at anyone else over what Their Darleen said about Our Shawn.
Let there be consideration for the young people finding their relatively directionless ways in that twilight of youth after college but before the real job. They will find themselves before they're thirty. If they're not asking their parents for money, it's all good.
Let there be patience for the very young and the very old, who do not bear up well under disruptions to their routines, even happy disruptions like holidays.
Let there be tact and understanding for people whose lives are "nontraditional" in your eyes. Do not ask Adam and Steve who is the woman. Do not press Beth and Daniel for a wedding date even though they have three kids together and really *ought* to get married at this point. Do not push Maria for details about her baby's daddy or ask why he's not here for Baby's First Christmas.
Let there be sharing of knowledge, so that the Ways of your people do not fade from the earth but pass from the older to the younger, as is meet, fit, and right. There's a lot of fellowship mileage that you can get out of the various Ways and Rituals of your people and the holidays are an excellent time to trot out the indoctrination materials in the name of Tradition. Get to it. Waste not the opportunity. Teach one of the younger generation how to make the gravy or to generate the white sauce for the creamed onions or your family's secret take on cranberry orange.
Let there be good family table manners. This means you can use bread to sop up the extra gravy but that you should chew with your mouth shut, say please and thank you, and make something of an effort to converse civilly with your relatives at the dinner table.
Let there be both genders and more than one age cohort helping with the dinner aftermath cleanup. It's really rotten to leave all of that to the women of a certain age, usually the same damn women that fixed the damn meal.
Let there be peace on earth, insofar as we quarrelsome apes are able to sustain that. Give it the old college try, anyway. I don't want to read about any of you in the paper or on the internets about how ya'll got homicidal over the last slice of pumpkin pie or who got the drumsticks. None of that.
*The flinging of mashed potatoes over what Their Darleen said about Our Shawn... that's not a made-up example of bad behavior at the holiday dinner table. I know you probably thought it was, the kind of thing I'd come up with to be funny and stuff. I didn't make it up. One year, grandma flung mashed potatoes on DL at Thanksgiving. Also called her a bitch. At the table. DL stormed out and slammed the door. It was one of our more... lively Thanksgivings. We're trying to do better these days.
I hope everyone who's having a holiday tomorrow has a pleasant holiday with family and/or friends, as is appropriate.
Let there be ample food and good cheer. This is a celebration, after all. You're supposed to be having a good time. If it's miserable and everyone's unhappy, why are you doing it?
Let there be a minimum of snarking. That's what all the OTHER times you see the family are for. This time, this time is for being together and not being mean to each other.
Let there be gravy! And stuffing! And pie! Let there be potatoes, mashed and sweet, without anyone flinging same* at anyone else over what Their Darleen said about Our Shawn.
Let there be consideration for the young people finding their relatively directionless ways in that twilight of youth after college but before the real job. They will find themselves before they're thirty. If they're not asking their parents for money, it's all good.
Let there be patience for the very young and the very old, who do not bear up well under disruptions to their routines, even happy disruptions like holidays.
Let there be tact and understanding for people whose lives are "nontraditional" in your eyes. Do not ask Adam and Steve who is the woman. Do not press Beth and Daniel for a wedding date even though they have three kids together and really *ought* to get married at this point. Do not push Maria for details about her baby's daddy or ask why he's not here for Baby's First Christmas.
Let there be sharing of knowledge, so that the Ways of your people do not fade from the earth but pass from the older to the younger, as is meet, fit, and right. There's a lot of fellowship mileage that you can get out of the various Ways and Rituals of your people and the holidays are an excellent time to trot out the indoctrination materials in the name of Tradition. Get to it. Waste not the opportunity. Teach one of the younger generation how to make the gravy or to generate the white sauce for the creamed onions or your family's secret take on cranberry orange.
Let there be good family table manners. This means you can use bread to sop up the extra gravy but that you should chew with your mouth shut, say please and thank you, and make something of an effort to converse civilly with your relatives at the dinner table.
Let there be both genders and more than one age cohort helping with the dinner aftermath cleanup. It's really rotten to leave all of that to the women of a certain age, usually the same damn women that fixed the damn meal.
Let there be peace on earth, insofar as we quarrelsome apes are able to sustain that. Give it the old college try, anyway. I don't want to read about any of you in the paper or on the internets about how ya'll got homicidal over the last slice of pumpkin pie or who got the drumsticks. None of that.
*The flinging of mashed potatoes over what Their Darleen said about Our Shawn... that's not a made-up example of bad behavior at the holiday dinner table. I know you probably thought it was, the kind of thing I'd come up with to be funny and stuff. I didn't make it up. One year, grandma flung mashed potatoes on DL at Thanksgiving. Also called her a bitch. At the table. DL stormed out and slammed the door. It was one of our more... lively Thanksgivings. We're trying to do better these days.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-25 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-26 01:54 am (UTC)Took the dog for a romp in the not too cold. The cat followed along. Ordered more yarn to finish up the hat that is not quite long enough and figured out a ribbed brim will fix it.
May everyone have such a day.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-28 04:05 am (UTC)My grandmother died Xmas eve morning. I feel bad for Mom. I don't think it ruined my Christmas the way it ?ruined? hers.
Today Peter was standing by himself 5 seconds at a time or longer.
Tomorrow Eric's parents come back with more of his relatives and he feeds them.