Holiday Desperation

For many years I have endured the violation of the peaceful holiday season I once enjoyed in my youth. This is primarily due to getting married and fitting in the numerous, and sometimes superfluous, family parties that my wife’s family holds. My Christmas 10 years ago was as follows:

Christmas Eve:
4:00 pm – 8:00 pm Dinner and presents at my family’s house

Christmas Day:
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Lunch at my aunt’s house

Peaceful and simple, right? Oh, how I cherish those holidays. Now, we find ourselves in a mad-rush, running from party to party, trying to see how many events we can go to; thereby avoiding the creation of inevitable offense against family members.

Here’s a recent sample of my Christmas:

Christmas Eve:
4:00 pm – 7:30 pm Dinner and open presents at my family’s house
8:00 pm – 12:00 am 2nd Dinner and open presents at Laurie’s parent’s house

Christmas Day:
7:30 am – 8:30 am Open ‘Santa’ gifts and stockings at Laurie’s parent’s house
9:00 am – 11:00 am Breakfast with Laurie’s Grandma
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Lunch at my aunt’s house
3:30 pm – 5:00 pm Dinner at Laurie’s other Grandma’s house
5:00 pm – 8:00 pm Party at Laurie’s aunt’s house

With a schedule like that, how can you possibly remember where you are? The potential for calling a rarely-seen relative the wrong name is great. And how stupid do I feel when I thank the wrong person for the wrong gift?

This year, I put my foot down. I declared to my wife in the most authoritative and manly voice I could muster: “There will be no more running around in the bitter cold, wasting gas. No more losing our sanity as we cope with the shock of moving from one family environment to another.” I am serious. I would rather sit at home, enjoy being with my little family and spend some good time with each other. Besides, I want to start our own traditions in our house.

My sweet wife just gave me that maddeningly condescending smile. It’s a smile that is common in many women. They use it when they are trying not to scream at their spouse or children in protest of what they have just been told. I am sure that In the back of her mind, she was probably saying something like: ‘I own you, slave. Your requests are in vain. You will never have any rest on holidays as long as my family lives.’

Does anybody know of any good jobs on the East Coast, or Europe perhaps?

Flurer Lexicon

I recently spoke to a good friend and used some words that he was not familiar with. This is because I used words that are specific to the little piece of geography we call 'Our Home'. Some of the words are just plain silly, but they are used frequently in our home. Some of these words/phrases include:

Trout: used in place of the word 'throat' when describing the symptom of an illness that causes one's throat to be sore or swollen. For example; 'I have a sore trout'.

Dime-ma-maria: used in place of the word 'diarrhea'. Since 'diarrhea' is a funny word anyway, we thought we would add a little more silliness to a word that really describes a miserable condition.

SBE: this word was inspired by the acronyms that people use when text-messaging each other over phones or using an Instant Message program online. SBE stands for Sudden Bowel Emergency and is used when one experiences a sudden cramp in the bowels, followed by an insatiable need to evacuate one's intestines.

Cruck-Cruck: this phrase is derived from the sweetly innocent language attempts of our two-year old. He is utterly obsessed with trucks. Whenever he sees something that pleases him or that is exciting, he exclaims 'Oh, cruck-cruck!' We now use it in our house when we are excited about something.

Cry-hole: a term that became very popular when our boy was born. He would often cry or scream, as babies do, and as I placed a binki in his mouth to pacify him, I would say, "Stick this in your cry-hole". We use the term when someone is whining. For example "Shut your cry-hole"

Plogged: a hybrid word that crosses plugged and clogged. If one is stuffed up with an overabundance of mucus in the sinus or chest, we say that we they are ‘plogged’

There are many others, but these are some of my favorites.