If you could sum up your typical Christmas gathering with a catchy slogan, what would it be?
As there is always a family drama brewing, mine is “it’s not Christmas until someone cries.”
At the slightest infraction: “<name> is ruining Christmas!!!”
We’re all over 25 in my family, but still enjoy pointless whining:)
Putting the “fun” back into dysfunctional. No wait, that is my best friend’s family.
My family: Where’s the bar!!?
With my family it’s not Christmas until we’ve had the usual split down the middle between the traditionalists (Big Dinner, same food every year, Presents early Christmas day, Big Lunch, same food every year) and the non-traditionalists (whatever you like for dinner and lunch, whenever, crackers being cracked semi-constantly, presents whenever, and a lot of watching old British comedy.) When I come up with a slogan for this I’ll post it. The traditionalists always win, at any rate.
“Oh, Jesus, I can’t believe it’s fucking Christmas again.”
My little brothers like it, though.
“Could you please shut up???”
Our family slogan would be the gawd awful sound of a child puking. It happens every year. One of the misskids is sick on Christmas every year.
“We may be far-flung, but at least FedEx can find us all!”
My immediate family is scattered from San Francisco to New Jersey, with Texas, Nebraska and Illinois in between. Needless to say, we’ve not all been in the same area code, let alone same building, for about 20 years.
We just did the Christmas Eve thing. I think the motto for this year owuld have to be “xxx, go take time out!” Apparently my siblings children are brats.
“DON"T TOUCH THAT!” My brother’s kids are revolting brats. I can’t believe I see them again tomorrow, for a meal.
Last weekend a friend and I went to see a program of old Christmas shorts from the '40s, '50s, '60s, including an old Davey and Goliath episode (“Davey, I want to be your camel” is our new catchphrase). These were incredibly cheap, no-production-values sorts of things, most involving either kids staring off camera for a hint as to what should happen next, really cheesy puppets, or really cheesy puppets staring off-camera for a reminder as to what should happen next. The program ended with a short featuring Santa giving out presents; Santa then made a puppet show magically appear. The puppet show was – Punch and Judy, at its most violent. The reaction shots of Santa beaming in approval were especially meaningful.
So the slogan for Yuletide '03 has been:
Nothing says Christmas like puppets beating the hell out of each other.
One year, after I was in college, my youngest brother (who must have been 9 or 10 at the time) had scoured the house looking for the presents hiding place. As my Mom’s luck would have it, he successfully found them, already wrapped, but that didn’t deter him. He sneaked a peak at -everyone’s- presents so knew what everyone was getting. It made our Mom so angry that come Christmas Day when she realized what had happened, she sarcastically commented, “Merry Christmas Ho Ho HO!” which went on to become family legend. And, it turned out, her login for AOL. LOL