It all went very well.

We ended up having a great Christmas after all. My sister said I had to confront my mom and say, "I don't like your hurtful behavior and you need to change it" or some such. This is the sort of confrontation that ends up with my mom weeping and nothing changing. Ever. Instead, when she would do her schizophrenic behavior ("Now, you don't get a daily newspaper, right?" "No, but Maddy needs a walk; I'll get one at the corner store" "NO, I don't want one!"), I would call her on it. She settled down and graciously accepted the paper (and Maddy was THRILLED with the walk and I was very happy to just out of the house without anyone else with me, well, except Maddy, who is always good company). I did that a few times and things got better, although I lost the battle of trying to have her sleep in my room on my good mattress with a door that keeps out the noise. Still a little stunned that she preferred tucking sheets into the folded-up hide-a-bed every night instead. (sigh) Whatever.

Christmas eve, we went to the evening service at our church, where I played handbells and sang and sat to watch the Christmas pageant and played handbells. And then went home. It started excitingly, where I sat on the Reserved pews with another choir-singer, quietly chatting while we waited for the services to begin... when the choir director quietly stole up to us and said, rather calmly, "You're supposed to be up in the balcony, playing bells, right now." Took the entire first song for my breathing to get back to normal, Ah tell you whut.

Then we went to my uncle's house up in the hills above Montclair and had a wonderful dinner with him and my aunt and her mother-in-law, who was very hard-of-hearing. My cousin arrived a little bit later and did very well communicating with the MIL, bless her. I never seem to be able to make myself understood. G opened his present from my uncle & aunt; a Nicktoons kind of mini-Playstation. Has 4 video games in it; you just plunk in 4 batteries and off you go. You can buy a Game Key to "unlock" other games in it.

Then home to await "Santa." G fell asleep pretty easily, Thank God, because I didn't want to wake up at 4AM to fill stockings. The damned brass stocking holders fell off the mantel probably 4 times (for 3 holders), once on my hand and once on my foot. G never woke up; phew.

Christmas morning, we leisurely opened our plentiful gifts and ate yummy (expensive!) turnovers from the local little bakery (pumpkin, orange almond, and apple). I got tons of things on my list! G was thrilled that Santa brought him some dinosaurs, the only thing on his list of 3 that he got (robot and jack-in-the-box were the other 2). Moved slowly the rest of the day and finally jetted out at 4PM to catch Albertson's before it closed for some steaks for Christmas dinner.

A very nice Christmas.