Well, that got worse before it got better

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were a flurry. We were actually glad, though, when our dinner for 4 expanded to dinner for 12. First, our oldest grandson and his girlfriend said they'd join us. Then, on Christmas Eve after the grocery stores were closed, our youngest asked if it was too late for her crew to join us, too, for dinner, after all. Good thing I'd bought a way bigger ham than we needed.

I'd convinced myself that it would be okay to support the evening Mass in addition to Midnight and Christmas morning. Fortunately, we used the parish's normal Christmas schedule rather than our normal Sunday schedule. But even so, I really could have used that extra three hours. Maybe then I wouldn't have been par-baking pie crusts at 3:15 Christmas morning, or trying to cook and help with wrapping at the same time on Christmas Day.

Dinner ended up being very nice; there was nothing fancy, yet everything was good; well, the mashed potatoes were a little dry, since we ate about 90 minutes later than scheduled, which was about 75 minutes after everything was ready. It also included a very nice uncured ham that I was able to pick up on sale at Whole Foods when I went for my bulk spices (cinnamon sticks, cured allspice, fresh whole cloves), carrots with a cream sherry and honey glaze, and some canned green beans that our middle daughter and her husband contributed along with half the potatoes to round out enough food for the extra folks. Oh, and my daughter and I were the only partakers of the absolutely delicious cabernet-blueberry cranberry sauce. I screwed up the pie crusts something awful, but the pies were still yummy despite them.

After opening gifts, the anticipated altercation occurred, at least in part because it was anticipated, and two people left mad. Apparently one of the kids left a candy cane lying around, and our dog got it. Amid the already-hubbub of grandchildren excited about gifts, our middle daughter's husband raised his voice to call someone's attention to the situation, our youngest daughter took offense at his raised voice, our son-in-law and middle daughter took offense at her offense and left. Ugh. I may henceforth refer to this as The Catastrophic, Calamitous outCome of the Canine Candy Cane Caper^©.

These adults judge each other too harshly. They have too much a sense of superiority.

I taught them well, apparently, the part of myself that most needs to die.