Christmas with the Family


Christmas used to be hell in our family.

With five cousins and their families, six other cousins young enough to call me "uncle", four grandparents, two aunts, two uncles, six great uncles, five great aunts and probably more...the air was thick with relatives I barely knew and didn't want to know.

Now thankfully most are far away, in care homes, dead, estranged or some combination of these. So there's just me, mother, father and sometimes brother. Plus four dogs and three parrots.

The time of exchanging giftwrapped socks and awkward platitudes with near strangers is over, and with family out of the way we can now spend christmas with...family.

See if you can work out our interpersonal dynamics from this year's gifts:

  • My gifts to mother: An 8GB memory stick and a course on how to play the piano.

  • Mother's gifts to me: A pair of slipppers and...something I'll get to in a minute.

  • My gifts to father: Um...

  • Father's gifts to me: Um...he likes to maintain that all money comes from him, so whatever I get he provides.

  • Mother's gifts to father: A sweater she knitted.

  • Father's gifts to mother: Um...see above.

  • Our gifts to brother: I'll get to that in a moment.

  • Brother's gifts to us: I don't know yet!

  • Our gifts to everyone else: Assorted homemade chocolates. Those we can resist eating ourselves.

    It was almost puppies, but that turned out to be another phantom pregnancy.


Oh, mother's other gift to me and brother? Domain names! With matching webspaces!

They're not activated yet, but pretty soon there'll be a Kapitano website, which I'm thinking will be mostly musical.

Christmas. Turns out it's not quite all humbug after all.

6 comments:

  1. ^Such a mashup with family has never occurred with mine. It would with my Filipino family if we could somehow all afford to go back to the motherland but even with most of us gone, I'm sure that little brick house by the ocean is filled with extended-extended family.

    With the paternal side of the family, extended relations are not that close. The limit of any real relations is kept within the my immediate aunt and uncles extending to my grandmother. And even then, we tend to spend Christmas with the nuclear family. Thanksgiving is when we try to see each other.

    This year is sort of weird. I'll just be spending it with my ma and sis.

    When you get that website of yours up and running, don't forget to provide the link for the rest of us!

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  2. WoW! At long last a Kapitano website. I'd hate to hazard a guess at the suffix, except it isn't a .com as that seems to be taken by a German dog lover - not to be misconstrued!

    Yet again I managed to get out of family commitments as they were all committed (chortle, just kidding). Every year I'm 'requested' and I never fail to avoid the potential nightmare.

    Anyway, Happy Christmas Kapitano!

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  3. It's not the size of the celebration but who you celebrate with that really matters.

    Sounds like a nice cozy Xmas gathering...some of my best Xmases were with small groups that didn't always include family.

    Your mother got y'all cool gifts. And I think that's awesome you gave people chocolates for gifts. Chocolates are delicious presents!

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  4. @Camy: I'd hate to hazard a guess at the suffix, except it isn't a .com as that seems to be taken by a German dog lover - not to be misconstrued!

    Indeed. "Kapitano" is the name of the prize stud - heh, heh heh, ha ha ha! - of a small Germna dog-breeder.

    He's black, fit, and silky - exactly like me in...no way at all :-S.

    I've exchanged emails with the owner, in my decidely limited German.

    I managed to get out of family commitments

    You devious man, you.

    Happy Christmas Kapitano!

    And to you too. Even though I'm writing this at 03:45 with a hangover

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  5. @David: I'm sure that little brick house by the ocean is filled with extended-extended family.

    It sounds like a great situation to visit - for the length of a party.

    we tend to spend Christmas with the nuclear family. Thanksgiving is when we try to see each other.

    Yes, I've noticed that about American families. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year may blur into each other, but there are definite differences in attitudes towards what you do during each.

    For some inexplicable reason, we don't have Thanksgiving in the UK ;-D. Or a Fourth of July.

    When there's something on the site to see, I'll point you all to it.

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  6. @Eroswings: It's not the size of the

    Hmmm?

    celebration but who you celebrate with that really matters.

    Ahh.

    Your mother got y'all cool gifts. And I think that's awesome you gave people chocolates for gifts.

    They're big, dense chocs - about as wide as the circle I can make with thumb and forefinger. One of the dogs managed to get hold of a brandy cream - but has so far shown no ill effects whatsoever.

    Unlike those of us who've eaten a few too many.

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