Christmas with family

[Pythos]

I had a very nice Christmas with the family. We had a nice breakfast, hike, game playing and dinner.

Also, I was attired in one of my prefered outfits. It was not a skirted outfit, but it was what is not curently considered traditionally male attire.

Following my shower I proceeded to put on my black jeans, with a blue sweater. Before I put the jeans on, I decided instead to wear some toned down leggings. So I found my American Apparel matte black leggings and threw them on the bed along with my sweater, and nice collared shirt. Got my danskin sheer black footless tights, took everything off, and proceeded to put the tights on.

When I had finished tying up the laces on my boots I was ready for the day. It has been a long while that I have dared to wear leggings at a family event.

When I went to pick my mother up, it took a while for her to notice the leggings. When she did she asked "You're not wearing tights today are you?" To which I responded "Well, no. I am however wearing my leggings, and for you I chose my matte ones" She responded with an "okay". Nothing more was said the rest of the day.

So I thoroughly enjoyed the day with my family, received nice gifts, one of which being a gift certificate from Old Navy (I wonder what their skirt selection is like?;)), got a good hike in, and enjoyed a great and tasty dinner.

How was your holiday, and what all did you wear?

[Since1982]

It was wonderful, I bought some pre-sliced turkey from the grocery store, some instant mashed potatoes, canned peas and made some lipton tea with orange blossom honey. After microwaving all that I unfolded my mahogany poker table.

I spread a red and white checkerboard tablecloth over my table, dug some plastic forks and knives from the leftovers bag from my last visit to Burger King, tucked the paper napkin in my T-shirt neck, sat on my spare computer chair and dug in while watching World Poker Tour re-runs on my TV. Sure was lonely sitting there eating all by myself.

I was wearing one of my brand new polyester/cotton scrubs skirts in Navy Blue, a bright red T-shirt, chocolate ribbed tights and my brown leather loafers.

Sure would have been nice to have some family or friends, but being in my own house that I own free and clear on a clean water canal and concrete dock, 300 yards from the Atlantic Ocean, is pretty good in today's massive foreclosure market. There are at least 7 homes on my street with no people in them because people bought homes without any money to pay for them. I'd invite neighbors, I've done it before, but the entire meal consists of "Do you own your house clear?" and "Got room for another person to live here?" questions, and watching them like a hawk to make sure nothing I care about slips out the door when I'm not watching.

People down here in the Keys BUY houses they can't afford and then wonder why the bank wants to get paid. Well duhhh... Sometimes some of the people on my street, WHEN they are not drunk or asleep ask me why I wear a skirt. Mostly, they get a nice friendly "Because I can" and then they wander erratically down towards the empty lots they live on between trips to the liquor store.

Used to be a nice place to live here. Now most of the former home owners that got caught in the housing crunch are gone, and living here is an ongoing series of people getting dragged out of homes they don't own but are illegally living in and off to the clink.

I suppose I have to sell out too and find a safer place to live. Too bad, after 30 years here. The ne-er do wells have taken over the area and crank, crack, pot and ecxtasy (sp) have taken this once fine neighborhood over.

I had looked forward to spending the rest of my life here, but I guess it's not in the cards.

Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone and to everyone a good night.

[Milfmog]

Had a quiet day at home. My wife, son (now 13) and I were joined by my mother and the outlaws, sorry, in-laws

We did the expected things; ate too much, took the dog for a walk to try and settle the surplus food down, drank one beer more than as wise and had to go for another walk... you get the picture.

Clothing wise I had two comments made to me:
Wife: "You are going to make an effort and dress up aren't you? No scruffy kilts today."
...I wore a pair of sand coloured moleskin trousers and a short sleeved, black, button fronted shirt.
Mother in-law: "Oh, you're not wearing one of your nice kilts today. I do like to see you in a kilt, it reminds my of my dad."

I just can't win!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas day and has a new year that is all they could wish it to be.

Have fun,


Ian.

[cessna152towser]

It was a rather lonely Christmas, I long for Christmases past when beloved family were all alive and well and for Christmases future when maybe I would be able to establish a new young family.
Wife has serious mobility problems following a series of strokes and she can't make much conversation but I did the best I could for her with a Santa stocking of surprise gifts in the morning then I prepared a Christmas lunch for us both - Baxter's Cock-a-Leekie soup followed by sliced turkey with roast potatoes, chippolata sausages, and brussels sprouts and finished off with christmas pudding in custard. I did the day's washing and hung it out to air, but in the low winter sun it was still wet and had to be hung indoors on a winterdyke in the evening. In the evening I ventured out to the local Indian restaurant and brought home some take away food to save cooking again, then the nurse arrived to help put wife to bed.
We have no children, brothers, sisters, neices or nephews, and our parents and aunts and uncles are all now dead, so no family to share Christmas with.
I have an adult daughter from a short lived previous relationship, my only child, sadly she has become a recluse and lives alone, rarely going out and doesn't want visitors, and I have not seen her for more than four years. Late morning I went into my e-mails to write to wish her a Merry Christmas and was delighted to find she had beat me to it and e-mailed me a few lines just a few minutes earlier. She was always closer to her mother, who brought her up and recently her mother has started visiting her again and managed to take her out once or twice so I hope and pray she is at last on the way back and that someday she will marry and have kids of her own. I often feel that I need to find a young woman and start a new brood of my own, but heck I'm in my fifties and set in my ways, do I really need to be starting over at this time in my life. The disintegration of the family since my father died five years ago has been catastrophic, I'm just glad I was able to quit the booze after he died as life would have been much much worse if I had still been knocking back the bottles of wine and waking up hung over.
I guess I am fortunate though, Christmas must surely be an even lonelier time for many people who have never been married and never sired children.

[sapphire]

We hung around watching reruns of "House", playing with kittens and computers.

Then to the kitchen we went and made from scratch lasagna. At first it seemed that the pasta dough was too short, but it turned out OK. We always have fun making the lasagna.

We made too much pasta dough so homemade pasta is in our future.

Its just the two of us (and the cats and computers). My parents are gone and my brother lives in Montana. The surviving Aunts, Uncles and cousins are scattered around the country and don't stay in touch. Carl has virtually no family.

So its just the two of us and happy to be together.

[Since1982]

Cessna said: I did the day's washing and hung it out to air, but in the low winter sun it was still wet and had to be hung indoors on a winterdyke in the evening. In the evening I ventured out to the local Indian restaurant and brought home some take away food to save cooking again, then the nurse arrived to help put wife to bed.
We have no children, brothers, sisters, neices or nephews, and our parents and aunts and uncles are all now dead, so no family to share Christmas with.
I have an adult daughter from a short lived previous relationship, my only child, sadly she has become a recluse and lives alone, rarely going out and doesn't want visitors.

and

heck I'm in my fifties and set in my ways, do I really need to be starting over at this time in my life. The disintegration of the family since my father died five years ago has been catastrophic, I'm just glad I was able to quit the booze after he died as life would have been much much worse if I had still been knocking back the bottles of wine and waking up hung over.

Sounds like we ALL need some Zoloft..

[crfriend]

[...]So its just the two of us and happy to be together.

And happy we were -- and are.

There was an "incident" involving the eggs used to make the pasta, and that led to some light-hearted moments and jokes.

Overall, the day was a grand success; I consider myself one lucky bloke.

[cessna152towser]

You got me there Skip, I had to look up Zoloft on wiki, never heard of it before.
No I wouldn't touch anti-depressants, I think these things are addictive, I worry that my daughter is prescribed anti-depressants, and whether she will ever be able to come off them and lead a normal life.

[JRMILLER]

Toni and I and daughter Anne traveled North by car to stay at the Rider's Inn in Painesville, OH. Rider's Inn is a 19th century stagecoach Inn which is also haunted (no sign of the ghost, probably went to visit *her* relatives).


http://www.ridersinn.com/

From there we visited Toni's family, ate food till we were stuffed and played games. The Wii was very popular because they had the Wii fit pad and another soft pad which were fun because you could get up and move.

We visited my forlorn sister in Fairport and my cousins in the eastern portion of Ohio. The cousins are all "country folk" with large spreads and lots of critters. My parents are gone as are a sister and brother. We used to all gather and my grandparents place who had a big farmhouse for a large, noisy Christmas. That's all gone and I do miss it, but this Christmas was good too. It was just different. The Inn was fun, the food was good and the relatives well behaved.

Happy New Year to you all!

[tooslowprius]

My X-mas was nothing in the way special. I started off working 12 hrs From 7a-7p X-mas eve. When I got home I didn't do much got cleaned up and went to bed, since I had to work X-Mas day. I worked my normal 24hr shift X-Mas day and boy did me and my partner get it handed too us. I didn't get to bed until 1am est time. We did are family xmas the day before xmas eve since I knew I was off that day and wasn't going to have too worry about feeling rushed. With the economy and me changing job's I made more important to get my children thing then to worry so much about me and my wife. So that was for the most part the story of my boring xmas!

[Sasquatch]

I spent the 22nd tying up a few things for work and then running errands. On the 23rd I accompanied my daughter to the DMV office to take the test for her "learner's permit" to drive a car...also did some last minute shopping. On the 24th we were expecting dinner guests so spent the day on house cleaning duty plus some more shopping plus an unexpected car repair. We had some friends for dinner...our neighbors from across the street (he's being deployed to Iraq tomorrow for a one-year tour of duty) and some friends from Beaufort. Then we stayed up until 3 a.m. wrapping gifts. For this we were rewarded by being awakened by our youngest around seven to tear all the wrapping off them again! Then we packed the vehicles for the trip to Grandpa's house...5 hours of driving on 4 hours of sleep...and prepared some dishes for the big family meal on Christmas night. It was a bittersweet celebration as this was the first Christmas since my Mom had passed away last year on Dec 28. We hung around Dad's house until that sad anniversary passed...housebound mostly due to the rainy weather. I had planned to rake the leaves from his yard but the weather cut me no slack. Then my wife had a shouting disagreement with my sister Saturday afternoon which left the atmosphere quite tense. She and my daughter left early Sunday, having come in a separate car since they don't like the smell of gas and oil from the dirt bike and chain saw in my old van...and are kind of embarrassed to be seen riding in it! Anyway, I was glad to come back home Sunday night after my son and I watched the Panthers/Saints game with Grandpa, enduring his smoking smelly cigars. I felt better after a leisurely drive back down east. My son snoozed most of the way and I just enjoyed the quiet. Then we ate a late supper in a Wilmington diner and the young waitress flirted a bit which made me smile finally...she was actually impressed when i plugged a couple quarters in the juke box and played some Doors and Creedence...I didn't know kids even knew that old music anymore. I got home late, crawled in bed, felt my wife's breath on the back of my neck and all was right as I drifted off to sleep.
Sasq