Christmas Waffles

How was your Christmas? Let me tell you about mine. I have this rule, and it goes something like this: To be fair to all members of my rather dispersed family, I should accept the first invitation to Christmas that is offered. That way, I don't become one of those invitation shoppers who holds out until a better one comes along. That's not nice, and it's not really fair either. Of course it also skews the odds in favour of the (seemingly) more organized members of the family. Bob is always the first to invite. He begins his Christmas plans on April 16th, the day after Tax Day. Though every Christmas with Bob, save one is like an extremely painful back massage, I always accept the invite because if I didn't, no one would. Is that a pity RSVP? Not really, there's also a measure of family duty involved. It's like, only one of two times a year that I visit, so I kind of feel that it's unavoidable.

That one Christmas, that really rocked was the year that Bob decided to stop observing Hanukkah, and get with the cool people. He managed to find a restaurant that was open on Christmas. It was the nicest restaurant I'd ever been to up to that time. It was really classy - The waiter brought the turkey to the table first, and then sliced it. All the kids were there, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. And the turkey was the best one ever not cooked by anyone in my family.

It's different now, all the kids are grown up and jaded by adult responsibility. But we're not the only ones. I'm just saying because it's different now. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Bob has a way of changing everything at the last minute after everyone else has committed to the original plan. It's his way of maintaining control. He'll do it even when it's someone else's party. I've learned to accept it, and this year was going quite nicely until about a week before Christmas, Bob called and said that things MIGHT be cancelled. The kid brother had mono or something, but we didn't want to tell Bob something he didn't want to know. "It's just whooping cough, nothing a little bit of chicken soup won't fix". But Bob was right to alert me because Foxy hasn't had all of her Pertussis shots yet. She's got one to go. Technically, I think she'd be okay but it's not worth the risk, especially since the kid brother didn't actually have whooping cough, rather something worse.

But then Bob called to say that dinner was back on. This, after I had already wormed my way into Christmas dinner with Sissy and Enzo, and a big delicious plate of Osso Bucco. So now Bob is Waffling, and I'm Waffling by association. I really hate Waffling. Alright, it's settled. I'll just cancel plans with Sissy and hope against everything that Pepper, my front-wheel drive Volkswagen can make it to Bob's without snow tyres.

So after a harrowing week of not having a job, then maybe having a job, then probably not having a job, and then all of a sudden having an awesome job, and the blackout at the liquor store, and the chirpy reporter who ended up printing his story without my comments (whew!), Bob called on December 24th to leave it up to me to decide whether I should attempt the journey the following day. Oh snap! Did he just...? Yes, he did. Bob played the Passive Waffle. And it had extra syrup on it. Whatever, we were committed to going to Bob's place, and we were going to do it. I'm not a Waffler, dammit! I let the indignation dissolve with a bottle of champagne and a big bucket of KFC. Now Christmas Eve can have all the usual fun and excitement, but you can be drunk and oily at the same time too! It's a Japanese thing.

And then on Christmas morning, the coup de grâce. The kid brother called up at half seven and said that there was a blackout at Bob's place, and that dinner was cancelled... I guess. I guess?? Now the kid's a Waffler, too but I didn't take it out on him because he's only Waffling by association, and he's only the messenger. I had to put a stop to it though, so I ignored the "I guess" shit and said that it's cancelled. I waited until a civilized hour to call Sissy and beg for a spot at her Christmas. Luckily, there was still room however we were going to have to transfer vehicles at some point. Don't sweat the small stuff. Just as we were about to leave, the phone rang and Bob apologized for everything and said that dinner was back on. The blackout wasn't his fault, so I told him not to apologize but we had in fact made other plans. We had actually invited ourselves twice to someone else's dinner, and it would be really bad form to cancel now. I kinda felt bad for Bob. I know he only wanted to see his favourite granddaughter. I said we'd try to catch him in 2009 and off we went for some Osso Bucco.

Christmas turned out to be very nice and quaint. Bobby managed to start an argument, even though he was awake for a maximum of three hours during our visit. Christmas night, Foxy came bounding into the living room with my gift. A nice 50 unit size box of Nestlé minis with a coupon for Crayola crayons, and a really nice tie from DKNY that I managed to fray in 5 seconds. The poor chocolate minis didn't survive three days. Ali has requested a deferred gift plan for 2008, so I don't have to worry about that until January.

Boxing Day, we all went to Randy and Kat's place where everyone is a karaoke star. As a little treat for our wives, Randy and I did a duet of Ebony and Ivory. As usual, Ali didn't appreciate it but Kat and Foxy thought it was the funniest thing ever. Randy did his usual Journey tributes, and I did some Scorpions. Ali did some Japanese thingy and some Beatles and Kat did some Pat Benatar and The Jackson Five.

The rest of the Christmas break so far has been focused on homework for me, and Billy's Bootcamp for Ali. I'm trying to figure out something to do for New Year's. Thanks to Yongfook and his suggestion of Louis Roederer, my plan is already half finished.