A Thoreau-ly Bizarre Christmas

A recap of the Thoreau family holiday celebrations, spanning two states, several species, and a dozen bottles of wine, shall be presented in a seasonally-appropriate Twelve Notes of Christmas format, so as to combat my desire to ramble, and ease your ability to comprehend the insanity. And thus, we begin.

1) Twas the night before Christmas, and it was not a mouse, that my aunt and uncle showed up with at my grandmother's house: It was actually a Labrador retriever, a stray cat, and a profanity-spewing African Gray parrot. That's right, for a one-night stay, my aunt and uncle insisted on traveling with their very own menagerie, as if the zoo-like atmosphere created by my family wasn't enough of the animal kingdom for the eve of the birth of Christ. The dog was pretty tame; the cat created minimal havoc beyond attacking and conquering all holiday foliage placed around the house; and the foul-mouthed parrot actively tried to assassinate my brother Jordie throughout dinner. He sat on top of his five-foot-tall cage (the parrot, not my brother), and whenever Jordie would walk by, look at him, or take a bite of his own food, the parrot would rear up all Dracula-like, spread his wings, and shriek obscenities at him, not unlike my boss. Apparently he understood the meaning of the middle finger, because Jordie's sole response of flipping him the bird would send him into a renewed parrot frenzy. It was not festive.

2) My aunt and uncle, who are awesome people but who are loud beyond the human range of hearing, became so raucous during our Christmas Eve Greek Feast that my dad began singing "Away In A Manger" and NO ONE COULD HEAR HIM. I could see his lips moving, and see him swaying to the beat, but he may as well have been Milli Vanilli-ing his chosen carol. It was at that point that Jordie texted me "we have to get out of here N.O.W.!!1!!!!!!"

3) When we finally departed the menagerie (the literal and figurative menageries), Lawyer Boy and I were unable to exit my grandmother's neighborhood due to the fact that the police had blocked off the only road out in response to a shots-fired incident. Oh yes. Baby Jesus, away in a manger, no crib for a bed, and while the angels are singing hark! SOMEONE STARTED A GUN FIGHT. We didn't know what was going on until we realized the police officer with the megaphone was yelling, "DROP THE GUN AND GET ON THE GROUND!" not "Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night!" They were not, in fact, a blue-clad caroling group out for a holiday stroll-and-sing. However, if they had been, I would have fit in perfectly in my shiny blue cocktail dress. (It should also be noted that my grandmother's neighborhood is more suited to shiny blue cocktail dresses than gunfights, so we had not brought our Kevlar vests that evening.)

4) My favorite Christmas present was the Miley Cyrus Christmas card my brother got me, which plays a real recording of Ms. Cyrus herself singing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" whenever I open it, which is extremely frequently. It lives on our fridge and I think if I open it one more time, the cat is going to take it to his litter box and do nefarious things to it. I'm summoning all my will power and trying to prevent this, so that in 18 months when pictures of Ms. Cyrus with a crack straw in her nose surface, I will have a real live Hannah Montana artifact. And bleeding eardrums.

5) The day after Christmas, LB and I packed up and made the six-hour drive down to Charleston, SC to visit his family for the holidays. The only noteworthy event from the trip down was when we stopped for gas in Emporia (aka Armpit Township, Virginia) and at a red light, sat behind a giant truck with the license plate CLETUS. The CLETUS plate sat proudly atop a trailer ball crowned by a shiny silver skull with glowing red eyes. This was immediately before we stopped at an Arby's noteworthy only for its musical selection, which sounded like a circus monkey raping a pipe organ while humming "Carol of the Bells." I somehow feel CLETUS was responsible for this.

6) My sister-in-law's husband surprisingly showed up with her for Christmas, and also surprisingly, was a pleasantly festive presence. This is surprising because for the last three years, he has hovered on the spectrum of humanity somewhere between "manic asshole" and "eternal douche," so even a journey into the territory of "marginal dillweed" would have been a welcome improvement. But since he all but candied his own yams and built keepsake toys for the wee ones, we were all happy. To quote Clark Griswold, that epic Christmas elf: "If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I would not be more surprised than I am right now."

7) When we arrived in the rather boring, rural suburb outside Charleston, we were forced to pile into the family Tribeca to take a suburban tour, at night. AKA, in the dark, AKA, after we had just driven for six hours. Apparently when LB told his parents repeatedly, "Grace gets carsick," what they heard was, "Grace loves to be folded up like an origami swan with seven other adults in a car that claims to seat seven, but only if those seven are Snow White's dwarves, to drive around East Jesus in the dark to glimpse the occasional Craftsman-style porch lantern. Also she likes to barf on your shoes/upholstery/children." That trip was not a merry dash through the snow.

8) The majority of our Christmas presents were gift cards to Lowe's or Home Depot, owing to the stupendously ugly nature of our house right now. On "Christmas morning" with his family, LB opened a Lowe's card that had a hammer festively attired in a red bow on the front, and his five-year-old adopted brother Tyler became so excited that he shrieked, "Mommy! LB got a HAMMER PRESENT CARD!!!!!" We have henceforth referred to all gift cards as Hammer Present Cards, and so it shall be forevermore!

9) A grand debate ensued around the Christmas tree when my youngest sister-in-law began debating with her mother whether or not her bee-hind was a Medium, per what the underwear my mother-in-law had bought her stated, or whether it was an Extra-Small, per the fantasies dancing like sugarplums in her head. This was an uncomfortable debate for everyone involved, including a moment when my mother-in-law challenged, "I dare you to get one buttcheek in an extra-small once you wash those!!" It culminated in all of us agreeing by secret ballot that the bee-hind in question was, in no way, an extra-small. Despite the conclusion, it remained awkward.

10) Speaking of bee-hinds that are no longer extra-small, in retaliation for having been abandoned to the care of the neighbors for a traumatic forty-eight hours, the cat chewed three holes in his bag of Meow Mix and devoured approximately four times his own weight in Mix in two days. We returned to find him awash in a sea of his own greed, yet thoroughly pleased with his exploits. Consequently, we have yet to be able to pick him up comfortably since. He could easily feed a family of twelve.

11) In the ten days I have been on vacay from work since Christmas, I have managed to stare at, rearrange, and kick around our bedroom (literally) the same overfilled basket of clean laundry, without ever putting them away in my closet or drawers. I couldn't be more proud of my own laziness if I had laid on the couch until my joints grew moss. I'll save that task for summer vacay when the higher humidity will facilitate quicker spore growth.

12) My New Year's resolution is to be more green, and reduce, reuse, recycle. Based on the amount of alcohol bottles that have already accumulated in the shiny new recycling bin, we may be getting a call from Central Virginia Waste Management regarding a possibly more productive resolution: AA.