Ran into a sitcom a few days ago that made the (sappy) statement “Xmas begins and ends with family.”
Oh bollockes.
Why should it? I realized I had Xmas today with two blood realtives, two ex boy friends (one my mom’s, one my own) two random athiests…
…and five golden rings.
No partigage that I’m aware of.
But I think it’s past the point of “family” into who do you love.
So who do you love this year?
“Who do I love”, and “Who do I have Christmas with” are mutually separate terms for me. I love a lot of people, but my Christmas is spent with me.
No one.
Checked in on the Dope several times – called a friend to see if I was still invited for lunch, I wasn’t (that was cool, I didn’t really want to go to lunch, but would have if it was important to him) – and forgot to call my aunt, which I realized right before I went to bed.
I like skipping Christmas.
Spent Christmas eve with friend - a tradtion of over 25 years. Spent Christmas day with Mom. 
Had a fairly traditional christmas with family… drove over to Kitchener-Waterloo with my mom and my brother in the car. There visited with my sister, my brother-in-law, two nieces, and a nephew.
No complaints.
The Partner Slip flew out Christmas day to go see his (and my) folks. I had to work, so I spent about half of the day with my coworkers and patients.
I then spent the rest of the day with my kitties
FS
Christmas Eve: 4 hours hosting family dinner
Christmas Day: 6 hours of marathon AA/Alanon meeting
Sounds like a joke, but it’s true.
Christmas Eve I went over to my old house to unleash a torrent of abuse on my ex. Then we sat and talked like adults. Then he came over to my house and assembled my bookshelves for me because I couldn’t manage it alone. Not the outcome I expected when I went there seething with rage, but welcome all the same.
Christmas Day was spent with my parents, grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins. My brother and his wife couldn’t be there.
Me, Myself and I (and Mr. AdoptaMom a bit later in the day). Our official family/friend Christmas was held on Christmas Eve in order to give the grown kids time to get to their respective homes to spend Christmas with their hubbies and babies.
Christmas morning I finished cleaning the kitchen and watched three movies back to back (Rudy, Elizabeth, and I’ve already forgotten the other one). It was blissful to have the remote all to myself. Mr. AdoptaMom went fishing and we enjoyed a late supper of leftover spaghetti & meatballs.
Today I’m going out to eat lunch with friends and drop by the mall for a bit to feed my candle and body cream addictions (if the sales are good enough).
At almost 45 years old, I’ve finally learned that family is defined not by blood, but by those in your life that you love and who love you. Embrace that concept - it’s very freeing!
Southwest flight attendants.
Christmas Eve - Mom, brother, Grandma, aunt, and great-uncle. Then a 3-hour Skype chat with my boyfriend.
Christmas Day - Mom, brother, Grandma, other aunt with her boyfriend and my cousin, and a friend who had nowhere to be for Christmas. Then a 3-hour Skype chat with my boyfriend.
Boxing Day (dinner later tonight): Mom, brother, other Grandma, other aunt and cousin.
I’m going to get so fat this week.
Christmas was spent at home this year, accompanied by:
My wife
My daughter
My mom
My brother and his wife
My wife’s mom and dad
My wife’s sister (and accompanying bean-in-the-belly, which was announced after dinner)
My wife’s brother, his wife and his wife’s mother
My mother-in-law’s best friend
And finally, a couple and their daughter that we’re friends with – they’re from the other side of the country, but he’s in the Air Force and was recently stationed locally. Since they have no family within 2,500 miles of here, we asked them if they minded being part of our family for the day.
For those keeping score at home, that’s fourteen adults and two one-year-olds. Anyone wanna come over and help with the dishes?
Yep: I love everyone I spend Christmas with, but I never spend Christmas with everyone I love.
This year I spent Christmas with my mom, brother, and dad. Pretty typical. My best friend and his wife and son go out of town every year, my oldest friend lives in Pittsburgh, and the new boyfriend was also out of town yesterday (though I don’t love him … yet). They are the non-relatives I would have chosen to spend the day with.
Mr. Stuff and the hotel cable. Neither of which demanded anything from me except basic politeness. Very restful. We must do it again.
I went to see my sister, BIL, nephew, and BIL’s brother in San Diego. After presents and eating we took separate cars to our house. The neighbourhood sure changed. It seemed much smaller than it did when I was a kid. The landscaping (such as it was) was quite different. Our house had a low retaining wall for making the front yard level. When I was a kid it sloped to the sidewalk. The tree in the strip between the sidewalk and the street was gone. Gone too was the olive tree and the ‘sword tree’ (I don’t know what it was, but it had long, stiff, swordlike leaves that we’d swordfight with) were also gone. ‘The Jungle’, the ten-foot area between the driveway and the property line that used to be filled with exotic plants, was gone. Instead it sloped down to the sidewalk and was covered, like the rest of the front yard and streetside strip, with brown grass.
For the first time in, I think, 30 years I went into the back yard. It seemed smaller too. More than half of the fish pond had been filled in. The fire pit was intact, but had a wooden cover over it. The honeysuckle along the back fence was gone. The lemon tree, heavy with lemons, was still there. The grass was brown, except where the painters had cleaned their gear. That was green. (We had the house painted a couple of weeks ago.) Come on, Tenants! Water the damned lawn! Oh, well. At least they pay their rent on time.
One of the tenants (his wife stayed inside, sick and asleep) is an auto mechanic. He sure had a wimpy handshake. Basically he offered his fingers below the middle joint. Kind of surprised me.
Anyway, my nephew liked the gifts I brought him. Sis and BIL got him a Battleship game that he insisted I play with him. He seemed a little unclear on the concept. There’s no ‘O’ or ‘N’ on the grid. Several times he shot at coordinates he’d already shot at. I sunk three of his ships (he never got a hit on mine) before he gave up.
I got him a little toy comprising a handle, a toothed T-handle, and three 4" disc-shrouded propellers. Pull the handle and the discs fly. He promptly lost one of the discs.
After visiting the rental house, I headed back to L.A.
One of my brothers lives in Hawai’i, and the airfares are much lower immediately after Thanksgiving than close to Christmas. So for the past three years, my brothers have come here to my house around Thanksgiving, and we’ve had our ‘Christmas’ sometime in the week immediately after. Since all three of us siblings are single and childless, and I, at 50, am the youngest, we continue to have Christmas largely as we had it when we kids were all kids, except that we have it on two days - one with my Mom, and one with my Dad and his wife (my parents and I all live in Trenton). We continue to have a fairly lavish gift exchange, because that’s the way we want it. Yes, friends are important, but family, for us, is the most important thing at the holidays.
Christmas Eve and Christmas day, I spend with my mom (having a very token little gift exchange just to make it feel more like Christmas), and I usually get together with my Dad and his wonderful wife sometime in the following week. This is because my mom would be alone if I didn’t spend time with her, whereas my dad has his wife and her sons (both adult, but they get together to some extent - the elder has children and in-laws, so my dad and Kathy and the other, single son go down to their house on Christmas morning, then return home for dinner.)
I had a lengthy period in my life when I didn’t get together with my family at Christmas due to my location (California) or my marital circumstances, and I now regret it more than I can say. My parents are both in their 80s, my brothers 63 and 54 respectively; who knows how many more Christmases we may have together? I love Christmas, and can’t imagine a better way to spend it than with my family. Friends and lovers may come and go, but your family is forever. For some, that’s not a good thing, but for me, it’s the best thing there is. Sorry to sound like a Hallmark card here, but for me, that’s the way it is.
I had Christmas with myself, my TV, my Unreal Tournament 2004 demo and a nasty cold.
FWIW, I was raised Jewish and Christmas isn’t that big a deal to me. I kept forgetting it was Christmas–tried to nip out for a burrito and ended up waiting for an hour at the Jack in the Box drive-through, the only place around that was open. I was supposed to have a “Jewish Christmas” (Chinese takeout and a movie) with my ex, but I was still feeling pretty sick and she had just gotten over a cold herself and didn’t want another one.
My parents and brother (and my dog) on Christmas Eve, with my grandparents added on Christmas Day. Small, quiet, and nice–just the way I hoped for.
On Christmas morning I had an early breakfast with friends at whose place I had stayed overnight in Canberra. I spent most of Christmas Day itself driving. I had dinner on Christmas Day and most of Boxing Day (yesterday) with my family at my brother’s property in the Hunter Valley.
I saw my family at Thanksgiving, which is when we exchange Hannukah gifts; many friends at a Solstice party; my in-laws on Christmas. We’ll see more friends on New Year’s and throughout the week.