My brother and SIL would drop anything for me, and vice-versa. Hell, my SIL has said that if she ever divorces my brother (when he's REALLY pissed her off,) she's keeping us (and we've informed her she'd never be able to shake us off, either.) She and I jokingly fight over who gets my parents should they need to move elsewhere and need care.

We're lucky, and I know it. She's pretty much estranged from her own parents and brother due to...I don't know, she still calls every week and her mom won't answer, sends the boys' school pictures and chatty updates, even though her heart isn't in it. But she will make the effort so that her kids will know she at least tried. He mother has met Tyler once, when PJ took the boys up there last summer. Her mother barely even addressed him when PJ met them for dinner with her uncle. Dominic used to spend a couple weeks every summer and now that he's 9, he's digesting that betrayal, even as they have never said anything bad about her parents to him. But that Grammy has abandoned him, and he gets that. It's fucking awful. Everything I've seen, including a poison-pen letter her own mother wrote her last year, make me think there are serious mental issues or immaturity at work (she still is connected with broader family, living grandparents and aunts and uncles. They don't get it either.)

But goddamned, they have us.

AUGH football.

My sister is working out how not to give me a ride to the airport. it's five in the morning, election day, and she's crap at saying goodbye. Threefer of no, but *someone* has to, okay?

msbelle, I wish I had known you were looking for a Wii fit & board! I have one I never use.

I wish everyone could have a big brother like mine. and my family may drive me batty sometimes, but they are never mean or cruel intentionally. People are more than welcome to holiday with us, we hosted people throughout my high school and college years. really undrama-filled mellow family stuff, unless mac has a moment, but really all that means is that we come home and let him do his vegging/game playing.

Cash, sell it on your local Craigslist, You could easily get $50 for them, no reason to pay shipping on something like that.

Thanks, msbelle. I'm posting to my MOMS Club list. I'll sell it for a lot less to one of them.

My siblings will do a lot for me, but getting up at 6:30 AM on the day after Boxing Day (big partying day in my home town) to drive me to the bus station is not one of them. Therefore, my eightysomething parents are doing it, because my mother is too crazy to let me take a cab.

We had 15 people for dinner last night, and I prepared the turkey, the vegetables, the stuffing, the gravy, and one of the desserts. The nice part of that was I got to skip all the cleanup and instead sit with my feet up and play with my new Kindle Fire(!!).

Not having to clean up was one of the best parts of cooking Xmas dinner.

My siblings will do a lot for me, but getting up at 6:30 AM on the day after Boxing Day (big partying day in my home town) to drive me to the bus station is not one of them.

Come on sibs! Shit, I've seen Sean do this and more for any Buffista in his vicinity.

I had one Ex who posited that you could measure love by who was willing to lose sleep for you.

Hello, Buffistas. Happy birthday to those born on Boxing Day!

I have no stories of drama to share. We had a potential drama, which my sister has fretted about for weeks, but thankfully it came to nothing. Short version, S. is dating a man whom her sister K. despises, and he was coming to spend a few hours with S. on Christmas Eve afternoon, so we half-expected an explosion. But K. solved the problem by staying out all night (usual behavior) and sleeping all day, awakening conveniently ten minutes after he left. He brought lovely flowers and seemed really nice and interesting, and S. wasn't shy at all when he was around. So I'm calling the whole thing good.

Now I am home and don't have to go back to work until January 3. Of course I'll be working some anyway, because the nature of the beast, but still it's a vacation. Today I just mostly slept and read and watched tv. Tomorrow I'll do something productive. Probably. Maybe.