Holiday Madness...No Really, This is Craziness!

Truthfully...there's not a whole helluva lot goin on around here. The campus pretty much dies on the weekends. And HOLIDAY weekends?? This is place is a freakin ghost town.

I'm thrilled I'm able to go home. The Mother Figure in My Life is going to be here shortly to whisk me away to the 2006 Family Holiday Madness Kickoff (aka Thanksgiving Day). I know the holidays are a crazy time for EVERYONE but sometimes I wonder if anyone could ever survive MY holidays.

When my Parental Units decided to call it quits 14 years ago, they chose "Joint Parenting" terms for their divorce (load of baloney that crock is....but I'm in therapy for it, so it's all good). This means that my Christmas Break was split in half. Mother Figure had us (me and Baby Sis) until Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day @ 10AM we were officially Father Figure's. Seems pretty 'not so crazy', right?

[Side note: My older step siblings were also Survivors of Divorce from StepFather's first marriage. They had the same schedule Baby Sis and I had....the only plus in the whole mess.]

WRONG! This scheduling meant that Mother Figure crammed in as many family activities as possible on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve we woke up at the most ungodly hour a child must be forced to endure. Every child and parent was showered, primped and dressed by 10AM. We all loaded into the car and headed to Event #1: Christmas Eve with Mom's Extended Family. It was a brunch and we ate and ate and ate and ate. Then we hurried out the door by 1 to make it to Event #2: Christmas Eve with Mom's Sister.

Mother Figure's Sister fed us 'early dinner' (4pm). Mind you we just sat in a car for two hours after eating our weight in food. Obviously the only logical thing to do was eat MORE!

Christmas Eve Event #3 started promptly @ 7 which meant we raced out from my aunt's to make it to Christmas Eve with StepFather's Mother and Extended Family. This little get-together never had any LESS than 60 people! And of course, the only way you're going to get 60 people in the same room together is promise them food. So................we eat............AGAIN!!!

Then at 9:30 we hustle ourselves out the door to make it home by 10, we change and get to church by 11.

FINALLY!!!!! At 12:30 we limp our way home one final time and the kids are finally allowed to do the ONE thing they've been wanting to do all day, open some freaking presents!

Then @ 8AM, all children are DRAGGED from their comfy, toasty warm beds to have Christmas Breakfast as a Family. And then promptly at 10AM the kids were handed off.


Rinse. Shampoo in Different Family. Repeat till Parents are Satisfied.