Austin, TEXAS, December 25, 2005 — Perhaps the day itself has too much hype. Personally I vacillate between thinking a jolly elf is going to bring me something unexpected and wonderful and thinking that I'm going to have a peaceful day with no one bothering me and nothing to do but read The New York Times and drink coffee.

Reality brought a slow morning of coffee, writing and looking at other people's journals and video logs. (FFP was in his office, occasionally sending me video logs to look at.)

I showered up before 10:30 because I knew my dad would come an hour before I said to

do it. I had wanted us to have soup and salads, maybe some sandwiches for lunch since we had a big meal at Threadgill's last evening. But my mother-in-law had in mind that we should come over and she would cook.

She had done festive things. For her. Santa was on the paper napkins and there was plastic holly, plastic mistletoe and tinsel around. She was using this china she usually doesn't use. She had made us these pre-cooked chicken breasts plus ambrosia salad, Waldorf salad, potato salad (hey, I'd suggested salad!), stuffing, gravy, mixed (frozen?) vegies and sweet potatoes. And a dish of olives. Some brown and serve rolls. There was a lot of it. I took a little of almost everything and got very, very full. I guess if I'd known we had to do this kind of dinner that I would have made something with a bit more flavor. But we got through it. We tried to help her clean up. This went badly. At one point, I offered to help her and instead of letting me or even just saying 'no, go relax' she left the cleaning up herself and went around the house trying to find a magazine for me to read. FFP and I were trying to get them to go to our house, where everyone can sit comfortably to watch TV. So this further lengthened the time of perching on their uncomfortable chairs. My father-in-law pulled out three cameras. One a perfectly good one that he forgets how to use and two he should throw away because they are cheap plastic ones that don't work for one reason or the other. I got his film in the one that works and took a picture. We went round and round about the cameras.

"Where does the battery go?"

"It's here," I said, flipping the little compartment with the hard to see place to open.

"Oh, it opens that way?"

"Yes, it's kind of hard to see" I said, doing it again.

"Does it only take one battery?"

"Yes, but it's a photo battery."

"This other one takes two and they go opposite ways."

"Yes, they are AAs. This is a 3V photo battery. But if you have to buy another, take it in. There are different sizes."

There ensued more discussion of the dead cameras. What free offer they came from and so forth. How I thought he should stick to the camera that worked, that was a decent one I gave him at some point. FFP's mom joined in. I think she'd finished her cleanup by then. So we could go to our house and all relax comfortably.

We watched TV and I borrowed Dad's van for a while to get some of a friend's plants moved off his sun porch. She thanked me for helping her, but accused me of trying to escape the slow pace of the celebration. I didn't deny it.

I felt lost, though, when the old folks wanted to go home. Dad left and FFP took his parents home. I spent the evening snacking. I ate nachos to spice things up after the blandness of the lunch. I wrote a stack of 'thank you' cards. But the mailman isn't coming tomorrow.

Christmas was less than festive for me somehow. And I'm ready to get back to 'real life.' But everyone else is going to take the day off tomorrow. Because Christmas was Sunday. I hope they feel festive. I don't. I hope my in-laws and my dad felt festive, felt like they had some excitement. Because I really didn't. I shouldn't whine. My life is great. But I wish that I had my mom here to make me play a silly game or do a puzzle. And to whip up some homemade rolls and gravy. She was in the dictionary under festive.