It is the third night here in LA and Christmas celebrations have wound down. It's been a good Christmas all things considered. No drama, which for any family, is impressive.
The morning started with me waking up before everyone else, before even the sun. Maybe it was the anticipatory child in me but I felt clear headed and ready for the day. But as I lie in bed, I mean couch, I found myself drifting back to sleep. Then suddenly I woke up again to a house thrown into chaos. Being in the midst of the chaos purely by sleeping in the living room, I rolled over and tried to make conversation with my uncle. Half asleep and thus incoherent, I rolled back into the pillow and back to sleep. What I was waiting for was my 7 year old acid monkey cousin to wake up and rush to the overflowing pile of presents under the tree.
It happened very unclimatically actually. He woke up finally and mosied over to his stocking with his sister trailing slowly behind. I've never seen such lethargic children on Christmas morning. Maybe it's just me (it's not) but when I was 7 I tore out of my bedroom at the crack of dawn screaming and shredding paper from packages as fast as my little hands could. Nothing could deter me from the presents under that damn tree. Those kids leisurely finished their stockings before stopping and having breakfast. What?! What!? I wouldn't eat, breath, sleep, shower, etc until all my presents were openned and lined up for all to see.
The rest of the day was normal as far as Christmases go. We all lounged around browsing our presents as well as others'. Because of the impracticality of bringing presents to LA just to bring them back, our family subset didn't bring many presents for each other. My presents from my parents (aside from one awesome one) are all still at home torturing me from afar. Tomorrow I will return home and enjoy my plunder but until then I must appreciate a few gifts from extended family. I also was not able to give presents to my parents which made me feel bad, but tomorrow that will be remedied.
Christmas dinner was also a success, which given my vegetarian uncle was a pleasant surprise. The turkey was well done, and I don't mean overdone, and there were mash potatoes and fruit and gravy and stuffing and all the other traditional American feasty foods.
Now we are watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind, not quite a Christmas tradition, but lovely to cuddle up with all of us and watch a movie together. All sitting, all quiet, all calm. I have never seen it before but the title reminds me of this weekend. Close encounters with my family. All ten of us crammed into a house built for two. In every room at least two people find respite, on couches, inflatable mattresses, chairs... And in a way we are alien to each other. We see each other a couple times a year or less and in reality we know very little about each others lives. Only what we can glean from the couple days we have with each other. It's not always as spooky as Close Encounters, although sometimes...
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