An upbeat Christmas post...

As I am getting into the holiday spirit finally, assisted by the cute children in christmas clothes and the boundless energy of my MIL I will reprint here something I wrote a few years back after spending another Christmas with my in-laws. It's short but to the point. I had found a new place to rest.

Christmas with the 'other' parents:

Yes, I had an incredible Christmas. Who wouldn’t enjoy themselves when they finally meet the kind of parents you want to come home to once a year? True, one can objectively figure out what about these people would have driven me crazy had I been their child, but as an adult, living in their home for 11 days, well it’s usually every woman’s worst nightmare to be stuck in the freaking arctic of Illinois with their boyfriend’s parents. Not just any boyfriend, most likely the man you will be spending the rest of your life with. So these are the people you have to convince they might want you for a daughter in law.

Of course the boyfriend thinks they’re perfectly fine, so what did I have to worry about? According to him they don’t judge anyone, they’re so easy, why am I so anxious? Um, perhaps, dear boyfriend, because once I get there, in the middle of nowhere, where the average temperature hovers at 15 and I have nowhere to go and nothing to do but read and watch TV THERE IS NO ESCAPE even if I hate them? What’s to worry? I could go jump off a building, oh that’s right, they only get 4 stories tall in the prairie, so I’d be more likely to maim myself and end up confined to a bed in their home with only them for company and at the mercy of their whims. That’s if I didn’t get frozen to the sidewalk on contact and have to be scraped off with a snowplow. If at that point, my appendages all remained intact, my jaw would likely be broken and I’d have to be fed pureed foods through a tube. But that’s only in the worst-case scenario.

No, none of my worst fears came true. They were so much better than my parents that I’m never going back home again. I might even forget my parents exist. I suppose I ought to wait until I marry into the family and have a little something to offer, like a grandchild. (Editors note: boy did I come through on that one eh?) One always needs collateral to be accepted into the family completely. The question is how to keep my mom away from said grandchild until it is old enough to not be scarred by her insane need to buy love with stuff and food. We don’t need to perpetuate the cycle of fat and greed one more generation. For god’s sake I’ve been in therapy for years and haven’t stopped equating love with whether the person will buy me a nice dinner and a pretty thing. Yeah, I’m that kind of girl. Shower me with presents? Sure I’ll stick around….

So yeah, Christmas was great, with calm, drama-free people who live to buy each other presents for fun and without strings attached. And 11 days went by just like that.