Merry Christmas again! Today was Wampler Family Christmas (tm), which meant that my dad's brother and sister and their families arrived at some ungodly hour to spend the day together. The hour was less ungodly than usual because every family member stayed up way too late last night watching the Iowa State / Washington State game, but they still got here between ten and eleven, which is impressive since it was a 1.5-2hr drive for everyone other than us.
We spent the day in our usual haze of eating all the random food that showed up, telling stories about all the random people we've known, and listening to Gram's same two or three questions interjected at random (but v. frequent) intervals. Gram's dementia is truly shocking; she walked into our house and asked whose it was, and kept asking that all afternoon, even though we've lived here for eleven years (and on this property for almost forty) and she's been in this house over a hundred times. Another bit of her long-term anchor has slipped; she no longer knows where things are located between the towns in our county, which used to be an immutable map in her head since she was born here and has spent eighty-eight years in and around these parts (with some time living in other towns, although she always came back to visit her parents / my granddad's parents before moving back in the sixties).
sssanyway. We had some awesome smoked turkey and ham for lunch to go with all the variety of fixings that showed up, and then we did the family white elephant, which was as ridiculous as usual. I ended up with two 20+ year old bottles of alcohol that will probably poison me, and a bongo that I can play as I'm going blind from the alcohol. Drewbaby (my cousin) chose the gift that he was destined to have - [censored] put in a book for how to cope with being the child of hoarders, which Drewbaby is (but we're all children of hoarders and destined to become hoarders ourselves, so c'est la vie). And we generally all had a v. entertaining time.
The rest of the day was spent with more eating, more merriment, and some quality time drinking Aunt Kathy's gift (she chose a bottle of margarita mix, and I was happy to supply the tequila, although I eventually switched to Bailey's on the rocks, followed by some of Aunt B's malbec). Gram went back to her assisted living facility, and the rest of us hung out until the wee hours. For Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy, that was only eight p.m. since they drove home tonight; Aunt B and Uncle Brian stayed until ten since they have a hotel room in town; and Drewbaby is sleeping on our couch, so he stayed up with me and [censored] and our parents, talking about a lot of adult topics until it was finally time for all of us to sleep.
So I guess I should go to bed - goodnight!
We spent the day in our usual haze of eating all the random food that showed up, telling stories about all the random people we've known, and listening to Gram's same two or three questions interjected at random (but v. frequent) intervals. Gram's dementia is truly shocking; she walked into our house and asked whose it was, and kept asking that all afternoon, even though we've lived here for eleven years (and on this property for almost forty) and she's been in this house over a hundred times. Another bit of her long-term anchor has slipped; she no longer knows where things are located between the towns in our county, which used to be an immutable map in her head since she was born here and has spent eighty-eight years in and around these parts (with some time living in other towns, although she always came back to visit her parents / my granddad's parents before moving back in the sixties).
sssanyway. We had some awesome smoked turkey and ham for lunch to go with all the variety of fixings that showed up, and then we did the family white elephant, which was as ridiculous as usual. I ended up with two 20+ year old bottles of alcohol that will probably poison me, and a bongo that I can play as I'm going blind from the alcohol. Drewbaby (my cousin) chose the gift that he was destined to have - [censored] put in a book for how to cope with being the child of hoarders, which Drewbaby is (but we're all children of hoarders and destined to become hoarders ourselves, so c'est la vie). And we generally all had a v. entertaining time.
The rest of the day was spent with more eating, more merriment, and some quality time drinking Aunt Kathy's gift (she chose a bottle of margarita mix, and I was happy to supply the tequila, although I eventually switched to Bailey's on the rocks, followed by some of Aunt B's malbec). Gram went back to her assisted living facility, and the rest of us hung out until the wee hours. For Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy, that was only eight p.m. since they drove home tonight; Aunt B and Uncle Brian stayed until ten since they have a hotel room in town; and Drewbaby is sleeping on our couch, so he stayed up with me and [censored] and our parents, talking about a lot of adult topics until it was finally time for all of us to sleep.
So I guess I should go to bed - goodnight!
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