Hehe...what a
great node idea!
This is how we
do it in the old abandoned
Fort Detroit:
Sleep in
late, late, LATE on
Christmas Eve, 'cause you're gonna need it. Around about
four or five o'clock, head on over to the
InLaws for the party. There's mountains of food, and about thirty to
fifty people crammed in a basement. Funnily enough, they're
mostly Catholic; I dunno what that means to their Faith...Well, some are
Southern Baptists, but I try not to think about that. Anyway, at least one basement corner will be
filled, floor-to-ceiling, with
presents. It's
astounding. As the people troop in, the
presents are divided into
piles in front of each
individual, and
dinner begins,
buffet style with much talking and
bonding. During dinner,
all presents have remained untouched, except for the "little things"--every
guest or
family brings a "small gift" for each of the
children, which amounts to the kids getting TWO piles of presents; one before the unwrapping, and one after.
Hey, it keeps 'em quiet. But
eventually, somebody
blows the whistle (usually literally, yes) and the
whole ensemble goes
apeshit, tearing, exlaiming, and moving on to the
next one; the whole family
unwrapping at once. It seemed
rushed and
unappreciative to me too at first, but I've since
learned that the reason for this is to keep the
party goin'--when you're done unwrapping, you still have to
walk around and spend
hours seeing what
everybody else got.
Go home.
CRASH.
Christmas
morning is when MY family does
presents. This is the
sedated Christmas, which is more than welcome when you're still trying to
kick the hangover from the night before. One present at a time,
ooh and ahh, read the labels. As a result of this, opening the
presents in my
four-person family takes about four to five hours, compared to the
ten to fifteen minutes in the big family; but this is how we
compensate for getting less presents on that side. But it works out well, because it's
dinner time (2 or 3 on Xmas) by the time we're done. Oh, and my
family is
Catholics too, except for me. I guess we're all
desperately wrong...but we have fun. Man, I can't wait. Get me outta work and GIVE ME A PRESENT!!!