I’m sorry about your baby. 
I hope he’s on the mend now.
I gave ours a ten. We were all together and my sister hosted a fabulous brunch.
One. I got exactly two Christmas cards: one from my parents and one (oddly enough) from a couple of my favorite HS teachers, which is astonishing because I graduated in 1989. (Couple as in they were both teachers of mine who happen to be married to each other.)
Got ONE gift (an Amazon card from my mom in the card). Even my Secret Santa on the board exchange didn’t send me anything. (Unless it’s lost in the mail.) Even my husband didn’t get me anything. We’re separated but still friendly and I got him a gift anyway.
Worked both Xmas eve and Xmas day. (At least I got time-and-a-half on Xmas day, and the cafeteria had free turkey/ham dinners for us.)
Thanksgiving was awesome though - I spent it with my parents and brother and his new wife and my nephew and niece (also a big Bieber fan - we had MUCH to discuss!)
Not quite the best Christmas ever, but we four were all together.
3
too bad.
I picked 5 because it didn’t totally suck. I just don’t get into Christmas any more. It was lots of fun when we were kids, and it was fun when our kids were kids, but now it just feels like a forced obligation, probably exacerbated because once again, I’m the one making the 2+ hour drive since everyone else lives close together. Eight Thanksgivings and Christmases since we moved here from Florida, and my side of the family has come here exactly twice. They don’t like the long drive… :rolleyes:
Sorry, obviously I have some issues there.
Utterly mundane on every level. Nothing bad happened, but everyone is broke so gifts were minimal. And the “festivities” consisted of the same thing they’ve been every year since I’ve been married: everybody sits in Mrs. Homie’s grandma’s living room and [del]gossips[/del] visits.
I give it a 7. I went over to my dad’s; we cooked and ate a nice turkey dinner, watched football, and went to sleep. Couldn’t really have been more quiet and relaxing.
Given that, I’d rate it higher, but for some reason it just didn’t feel like “Christmas” this year. Very few people had outdoor decorations, it never got all that cold, and we haven’t seen a single flake of snow. I didn’t see any signs of holiday spirit to speak of — even the usual onslaught of Christmas music seemed halfheartedly done.
Ah, well, 2011 was hardly a banner year for anything else, either. Here’s looking forward to a whiter Christmas in a brighter new year!
What an awesome Christmas! Spent way too much money, but got some fun things, and will enjoy paying off the CC over the next couple of months. I didn’t have enough time off, but work is busy and there’s nothing that can be done about it. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all at various family gatherings, so Monday was my only day to unwind, and that was spent cleaning up and doing laundry. So I guess that could have been better, but everyone’s spirits were up (and only had to deal with the in-law kids once), so no complaints! I’ll get time off next weekend.
Pretty pathetic but it could have been worse. Husband gets cheaper and less fun every year and now we seem to have totally cut out the one big fun gift we give ourselves (sometimes it was a big TV, or a game system, or some other really fun extravagance). He now gets more pleasure from self-denial so I am just stuck. No family, one phone call with a friend who was off to celebrate with others. Our first year with a fake tree and the cats insisted on climbing it and bent all the hinged branches down and knocked off and broke several special ornaments, so the tree was a total wash. It’s so damn hot here this year that the fireplace went unused, we were close to needing AC in the house, and I am sick of being hot all the time. Dog still has his terrible fall allergies since leaves are still falling and we have other fall features that make him itchy.
On the other hand, all that is pretty minor compared to problems we could have. So, from a totally selfish standpoint, 3.
Bout a six. I’ve been sick for weeks, nothing serious but just enough too make me feel like shit, so I am and have been exhausted for ages and it seemed like every time I turned around someone else needed something else from me. Our Bataan Death March travel plans were even more exhausting than usual because of work scheduling. * My granny with Alzheimer’s has had a mini stroke that nobody else had noticed (she’s on the outs with a fair chunk of the family for dementia -related reasons.)
But we were mostly together and nobody at my in-laws picked any fights or locked themselves in the bathroom to cry. And my little niece got me a present she picked out all by herself and paid for with her own money. So overall I really think wanting more than that would just be greedy.
*FCM, at least your family is only two hours away. His is an hour one direction and mine is nearly 5 in the other. And no, neither of them come to see us because of the long drive, even though they both bitch all the time about how they never see us.
It was pretty much a non-event in that nothing great or bad happened. The drive up and back was uneventful. The food was good. I got stuff I wanted but also some real white elephants. Just glad to be back home.
ETA: 6.
Thanks. He’s okay. And we’ve decided we’re going to do something awesome in a couple weeks to make up for it because I just don’t feel very good about this Christmas at all.
It was not going to be a good one, since my father’s funeral was a week before. He was stricken just after Thanksgiving, and it cast a pall over the entire month.
Having our daughter visit helped, but it was a little difficult to celebrate, and the weather was more like October than December, so it didn’t feel like Christmas.
Gave it a 2. My parents are mad at us, so they came over briefly on Christmas morning (didn’t eat breakfast or stay for lunch), hung out for a bit, then they took their gifts and left. My wife’s father and stepmom, meanwhile, started fretting about bad roads (skies were clear and roads were barely wet, no snow in the forecast), so rather than staying another day as planned, they hurriedly packed up and split, leaving us with our sweet little girl crying because her grandparents have left her. So basically, for Christmas we got rejected by two out of three sets of parents. Yay us.
A good solid 2. Christmas has sucked since I’ve been in the long drawn out divorce process. So lets see:
Grandmother died on Christmas Eve. Its sad but I can’t be totally heart broken over it. She was 104 and certainly had a good run. But her timing sucked.
After spending Christmas morning and afternoon with my ex my kids call me while I’m on the way over and tell me that they want to stay there with their cousins. Didn’t see my children at all on Christmas.
What brought the number up from a 1 is my wonderful girlfriend. Other than that, Bah Humbug.
I gave my wife 9 presents, and she actually liked all of them (or at least acted like she did, which is close enough). So, I gave it a “7”.
I’m glad Rushgeekgirl. I thought about you all.
I gave it an eight. It started at Thanksgiving. Of last year.
Last year my older son wanted to help with the dinner so I told him I was going to roast some carrots and potatoes, and could he quarter them for me.
The next thing I knew, he’d sliced the potatoes into french-fry like sticks. My younger son said, “Oh no! He screwed up the potatoes! Thanksgiving is ruined.”
This Thanksgiving the guys took the turkey out of the oven. Older one instructed younger one to help lift it out by that plastic ringy thing around the legs. Younger one tugged a little too hard and the bird seperated. “Oh no!” Older one yelled. “He pulled the ass-end off the turkey! Thanksgiving is ruined.”
Christmas. This one. I thought I’d planned out the meals well enough but with three men in the house food can disappear pretty fast. Christmas eve there was nothing “good” left to eat. So we put some boloney on stale hot dog buns, older son took a picture of it for posterity with his new camera, and of course everybody said, “Oh no…!”
Then we pulled out the Christmas Day ham & fixin’s, opened our presents early and went to bed fat and happy.
Yeah, at least an eight.
Good solid 9.
Surprising since my dad died at this time last year (well, early January) but it was lovely all the same.
I saw good friends, I gave my mother some things top make her life better. I ate her good home cooking. It was a nice. I woman to love might add to it, but other than that, life is good.