Happy families at Christmas

[Alice Abbott]

I know Europe in general has been having it pretty hard weatherwise for a few weeks. Mack's parents have been passing on horror stories from Ireland and although it's not quite so bad here we still have some pretty poor weather and very cold nights. California has been suffering too, storms, torrential rain, mudslides etc. For that reason a chunk of MY family yesterday arrived in the Charente Maritime to help us "celebrate". Unfortunately I feel a Christmas from Hell coming on...

The cast of characters is this:

My Dad who hasn't been in Europe in 30 years and currently thinks everything is "quaint". I have an ominous feeling this will change to " Goddamned backward frogs" via "miserable peasants" and "bloody uncomfortable cold houses" very shortly. He is currently upstairs teaching Pia and Luca (who he has now met for the first time) how to play some strange little finger cymbals and a jawharp he brought with him. Apparently old hippies never die, they just revisit their rather extended youth after living a perfectly civilized life for 20 years...

My Mom, who was here last Christmas and is still "full of it". She has been searching out her acquaintances around the village all morning, insisting on taking the twins in their buggy. No doubt their hungry screams will bring her home shortly...

My younger sister Ginny, who actually does not speak to my parents. In fact, she let up on this rule last night over dinner to tell them EXACTLY what she thinks of them and their ideas. Apparently they had already sat at opposite ends of the plane and also the train from Paris. Fortunately Mom and Dad are staying in a gite in the village so we can expect at least SOME peaceful interludes. I love her to bits and I'm proud of what she is doing to get her life in order (alll signed up for university in the fall) but she ended up with all the pedant genes in the family and will not back off on her opinions on our parents... She has Mack's guitar in the dining room and is apparently having her own concert in there.

My older sister Loren, the doctor, newly divorced, childless and jaded. She finds our household noisy, crazy, freezing cold (despite an enormous log fire which defies anyone to get within eight feet of it, the wood stove in the kitchen which keeps the temperature suitable to run around in a swimsuit even in December, two duvets on the bed and the dining room all to themselves as a bedroom, complete with door - a luxury no one else has in the house!) Personally I think she has turned into a spoiled brat and see it as my mission over the holidays to find the old Loren I used to have such fun with lurking under the shell she has made for herself. She has a headache and is in the living room under a blanket, complete with earplugs and a large bottle of cold remedy she brought with her!

Then the usual culprits. Mack, who has disappeared to clean out all the animals and re-arrange his woodpile (he must be getting desperate to escape his in-law family). Pia and Luca who suddenly have four new friends who all think they are as cute as Betsybugs and can do no wrong. Also a pile of interesting Christmas presents under the pine tree we dug up and replanted last year. It is much bigger this year and is in for it's second Christmas in the nice cool hall. The twins are just their normal selves, completely identical, good babies who smile for everyone.

And then there is me, the whirling dervish. Mom yesterday presented me with a pile of Christmas goodies from her case - sweets, nuts, dates, candy canes, popping corn, a big bag of cranberries... She even discovered food shopping online from the US to France and we had a big delivery yesterday evening. So now I'm wrestling a goose into the woodstove. In fact, I'm sneaking away to sit in front of my laptop in the corner of the kitchen with a glass of blackberry wine and letting the chaos carry on without me. I am so proud that just about everything we put on the table over the next few days will have come from our garden (excluding Mom's excesses of course). I'm making chestnut stuffing (trees along the roadside), mushroom stuffing (dried from autumn picking) roast, boiled and baked veggies of just about every type, home-made wine, cider and home-made coffee liqueur. We have home-made tomato soup with basil (still growing on my kitchen windowsill), fresh baked bread and pumpkin pie. We even have a strange pumpkin champagne I made last year. We have the goose from Mom but would just as happily had rabbit from our local friends.

Anyway, Happy Christmas to everyone on the site. Assumng I survive the experience of Christmas a la famille I will no doubt be recounting more on our ridiculous lifestyle next year!

[MuddyWitch]

Alice

Have a lovely Xmas, and a quieter, less eventful New Year!

MW

[mrsflibble]

and this is all why christmas day itse;f is a chilled out affair in my house lol.

we've so far had a visit from jim's mum and her husband, jim's dad and his girlfriend (no, those 4 poeple were not in the house at the same time), jim's two brothers and their respective partners, wife of the older brother brought Texans in tow. like a rash, onl louder and more annoying. actually no, they were lovely. i am sick of being told "hey y'all, if you come to ours you know y'all gots a place to stay." lovely offer but i 1. hve no passport and 2. we dont have the cash fo passports or flights and 3. ihave no desire to visit texas.

oh, and possibly 4. i think my husband may still be wanted in texas and i dont want to find this out the moment we get through customs. it's a long story.

we had my parents over at the start of the month, and then went to visit them too as we do quite often anyway. mother came with jim and myself to see the school nativity for which we allowed sophie to be in the choir and had long discussions with her about "some poeple believe.... some others believe.... i believe...." etc. I am a pagan and my husband is a born again atheist. no, we did not mention he flying spaghetti monster. google it. it's a good festive story.

i made my first ever fruit cake. i was so proud and really want another but i dont think i can scrape together enough dried fruit for a second one lol.

i got to see my auntie round at my mum's house, lovely but seeing as my mum has unstable angina, dad has broken his ankle and unle had to dig their car out of 2ft of snow in order for them to return home, it made for a rather awkward day.


merry winterfest!!!

[spider8]

Having escaped a trip down south to stay with the in-laws over Christmas I can't add my tale of woes (although when we do make the trip in January/February I can off-load then!).
Good luck Alice and to all who are having a 'family' get-together - just survive!
It's a quiet Christmas for Dave and I with a Boxing Day visit to the landlady and her friend and that's it.......unless we get any callers and they're very welcome .
Have a good one, whatever you celebrate and keep warm and take care .

[theabsinthefairy]

I found that moving abroad had a an excellent consequence. No more Christmases with family, they all consider it far too cold to come to the rural backwater we live in, and so we always have a houseful of friends instead. Much more relaxed, much more fun.

[Millymollymandy]

Merry Christmas Alice - I love your stories. I would like to be a fly on the wall chez toi!

Thankfully it is just us two here so we can do what we want when we want and just generally slob out.

Happy Christmas to everyone and hope you all have a lovely time whoever you may be with!

[oldfella]

Hey Ho, never mind young Alice, you've got a departure date to look forward to, and next year you can have Dengue Fever with a slight touch of Galloping Gut-rot, which we all know is highly contagious, especially the French version, and which I hear will be very virulent in the Vendee area next year. Anyway do your best to have a good Christmas, but most of all look forward to HAPPY NEW YEAR

[Alice Abbott]

We eventually negotiated a Christmas Day truce! Mack and I feel as if we should be employed by the UN now.

Mack took Ginny for a walk and told her in no uncertain terms that she was not going to spoil Christmas lunch for HIS children and if she couldn't behave herself she could have her dinner on her own in her bedroom. I don't think anyone else could have got away with speaking to my very feisty sister like that and come home without a black eye! In the meantime I spoke to Mom and Dad and told them if I heard one pointed remark or sarcastic comment from either of them I was never going to invite them to visit again.

Result? A very civilised (if a little stilted until the apple wine began flowing) dinner. Even Loren came out from under her blanket and enjoyed her food. We are still eating in the kitchen as the dining room is doing duty as a bedroom, also we have no furniture (or heating) in there. However the temperature was hovering around 80F in the kitchen thanks to the woodstove so she had no excuse really. Pia and Luca received bicycles from their grandparents (cunningly ordered and hidden by the gite owner for them) and are totally beside themselves. The twins excelled themselves by BOTH having an attack of croup but Loren (how convenient to have a pediatrician at the dinner table) sorted them out in no time. We even managed a spot of "do you remember when we..." ALMOST normal in fact!

Normal hostilities have resumed today though. We are off to my parents gite for a late meal and to let Luca & Pia watch some French Christmas TV show they have their eye on. Ginny has decided to spend the evening in our kitchen making a goose curry for tomorrow and won't come. She has, as she put it me, put up with the hypocritical w*****s for long enough!

I still see it being a very long week. I just live in fear of the airports still being jammed up next Sunday...

[crowsashes]

well a 'guest' finally left xmas eve ( but invited themselves back on friday ) my not so pleasant gran has invited herself round too - along with my sis who has announced shes preg ( bridezilla if you remember) currently going through 'marriage issues' after a mere 9 mths and are now having the customary 'fix-it baby' that has since involved lots of differing comments ,especially after she criticized my other sis who keeps having her kids taken off her , for having a baby to keep a man , i got the 'arnt you excited?' demands ....shes the 4th to get preg this year sooo.... no not really...

i was hoping for a week of clearing out.... mid-winter spring cleaning is in action. have a coffee table, sofa, plus many other random bits to go that i dont have the time to sort....

mother and brother are coming at some point. thats not so bad, LO plays with the bro while i get to sit and chill because someone else is entertaining him

.....anyhow its not as bad as previous years... the xmas tree is still in one piece and my aunt finally passed on after a very long illness, alcohol induced liver failure...as bad as it sounds it was a blessing and shes no longer in pain physically and all those demons that forced her to drink... just wish the rest of them would see that the petty moaning about pressies etc really dont compare to some things!

btw did anyone watch Dr Who? thought it was a cracking episode and very well written although the ending was a bit ...flat!

still theres a few more days until jan 10th when things FINALLY go back to normal...ie little one goes to nursery i get my brain back

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I found that moving abroad had a an excellent consequence. No more Christmases with family, they all consider it far too cold to come to the rural backwater we live in, and so we always have a houseful of friends instead. Much more relaxed, much more fun.

Ditto. Plus I have no family left, which does limit the field a bit. Miss them, though.