I am hoping TJ's plus the pet store can accomplish most of the above.

TJs on Christmas Eve? You are a braver woman than I.

We got up early to bake, since today is lunch with Dad and then dinner with Mom and Stepdad (plus Stepdad's small yet incredibly loud and chaotic extended family), so we have to get out the door by 11:30. Mom requested corn muffins for tonight, which are a snap to make, but Tim was also baking schnecken, which uses a yeasted dough, so there was rising time involved [that's what she said] and other complicated shit I don't know about. So we had a complex schedule worked out of what baking stages of which baked good would happen when.

And it all actually worked on schedule! In this house, that's a frigging Christmas miracle.

The great thing is, Erin, that by not going the ultra-glam route you were able to show her up by just being yourself and being better at life in general, thus depriving her of the satisfaction she'd get from you trying to show her up.

I think you're right, Matt. I'm glad I went the way I did.

And with that, we are off to Iowa!! To my sane in-law's! Woo!

Living well is also the most classy revenge.

I should have left about three hours ago. I'm still not ready to leave. SIGH

My family is too dull for there to be any really drama, but my nieces are making up for it with daily teenage drama.

Which makes me want to laugh and laugh at my sister, because I am not very nice and she deserves it.

The great thing is, Erin, that by not going the ultra-glam route you were able to show her up by just being yourself and being better at life in general, thus depriving her of the satisfaction she'd get from you trying to show her up.

It helps that Erin's base-level glam is pretty high.

I've decided to rotate watching different versions of A Christmas Carol every year. So we watched the musical version - Scrooge - with Albert Finney from 1970 last night. I saw this in theaters when I was a kid.

Finney's not the greatest Scrooge. He sort of plays him like he's got a toothache the whole time. But he's too good an actor to ruin the role or anything. And the music is good, and the production is excellent, and there are Victorian Street Urchins (tm) who say "Thank you, guv'nor."

This production probably has my favorite Cratchit family, though. Very winning, and a likeable Tiny Tim are key. Also it has the rousing "Thank You Very Much" song which is practically the "76 Trombones" of 1970 and had Matilda dancing around the living room.

JZ is parked directly in front of the heater trying to warm herself. We're both sucking up coffee and nibbling on toasted banana bread slathered in butter. We've got a lot of cleaning to do before EM and Emmett come over. EM will make the xmas eve dinner (Matilda and Emmett have lobbied hard for duck). She'll spend the night, and Emmett will sleep on the couch in front of the xmas tree which he loves.

It'll be a good xmas morning because Emmett is going to Flip Out With Joy when he gets his present. He's been such a trooper this year dealing with all the early commutes via BART by himself (it's really hard on a 15 y.o. to get up at 5:30am) that I asked JZ's family to combine their moneys for one mega present. We were just going to get a refurbished 1.0 iPad, but his uncles in NYC decided they'd make up the difference and he's getting the new one.

I need to get a few more stocking stuffers but that won't require a trip to the Mall.

Unfortunately all the family drama this year is caused by illnesses: brother's cancer (still secret from Mom), aunt has a concussion and can't travel, Mom herself on 24/7 oxygen and feeling like she's starting to circle the drain. Also other brother still on temporary disability because of neural issues with his arm/hand. That's a lot of ouchies for a small family. I guess I should be glad there's no lifestyle troubles to add to the mess.

I'm bored. I did have some kind of stomach bug, and I'm feeling mostly better, but not quite better enough to go to the only thing I was invited to, which is a dinner in the city where the only vegan thing on the menu is salad.

Which makes me want to laugh and laugh at my sister, because I am not very nice and she deserves it.

This made me giggle.

I don't think we have much by way of family drama these days.

My family is mostly drama-free (small interpersonal dramas aplenty, sure, but what family doesn't have those?). The only big giant scandal was a few years ago, when my cousin who was married to an Orthodox priest stumbled on proof that he'd been having lots of sex with various members of the congregation (any gender, but all adults, so, bully for him, I guess?), including over the past year when she'd been going though chemo and radiation for breast cancer and still virtually solo parenting their three kids because being a priest was just so, so time-consuming and exhausting.

But that was a few years ago, and he is safely an ex. Still generating drama (lousy at support payments, having shit fits because his brother and SIL have had the audacity to still be friends with the kids, and similar assishness), but at a slight remove, and the actual blood relatives continue to be tediously proper and pleasant and faithful, with nothing more scandalous than unpaid library fines.