3 or 4 Days of Christmas

12 days of Christmas. At first that sounds like a great idea-- 12 days of celebrating, feasting, opening gifts, and enjoying the fun and relaxation that comes when that holiday finally arrives!

But then you quickly realize that it also means 12 days of bloated stomachs after overeating, cleaning up mounds of gift wrap, and defusing arguments which inevitably ensue when families get together for an extended period of time.

So here is my solution: how about 3 or 4 days of Christmas, depending on how much fa-la-la-la-ing you can handle?

You see, last night I spent about 45 minutes dropping extremely heavy (we're talking mercury-density here) hints that I wanted to be allowed to open 1 gift in celebration of Christmas. I was immediately joined by my siblings on this crusade  mission, and was immediately shut down by my parents. However, after 45 minutes of logical reasoning, quippy jokes, and blatant begging we finally broke 'em! We were allowed to open 1 gift. And it was absolutely wonderful. The entire ordeal (if we include the badgering persuading) took about 1 hour, and cleanup was over in about 3 minutes. We all talked about our gifts and spent some time together in the living room, then went our separate ways for the rest of the night. It was very fun and very stress-free. Hence, day 1 of Christmas.

I'm looking forward to the next 3 or 4 days of Christmas.

Day 2: Eric gets in to Dallas tonight and will, at some point during his visit, open his gift from my parents and they'll open their gift from him. I'm making a big dinner tomorrow night (spicy shredded pork, scotch potatoes, and macaroni and cheese) and we'll have a great time! So little muss, so little fuss. Thus we have day 2.

Days 3 and 4 are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve my brother and sister and I will open our stockings, and Annie will open the pets' stockings (yes, we're those people). We'll take pictures and get all the wrappings cleaned up and spend the rest of the night hanging out together. Finally on Christmas Day we'll spend the morning having a family breakfast, opening all the gifts and lounging around the house. Then we'll head over to my aunt's house and have Christmas with our family and enjoy a traditional Cuban Christmas meal! We'll open gifts with the cousins and grandparents and eat way too much. When we finally make it home we'll probably just end up collapsing on the nearest flat surface, but it will be a merry collapse.

Days 1-4 look to be full of food and gifts and family, without all the bloating and the fighting and the drowning in gift wrap. With a 2-month build up to Christmas, it's hard to just celebrate for one day. 3 or 4 days is a nice term limit. After all, everything is better in moderation.