Holiday recap
Here we go...

The past few days have been a blur, beginning Wednesday night with my slippery trip to the store for cookie ingredients, then Thursday's cookie baking, and Friday's frenzied cookie baking. I got off scot-free with the herring, no excuse needed, on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Day we started off the morning at my in-law's, and then headed to my mom's for brunch. We arrived back at my in-law's and were there for the evening. My husband's dad's side of the family was there, and the men far outnumbered the women. There were my husband and his two brothers, plus three brothers of my husband's aunt and uncle, for a total of 6 men between the ages of 18 and 32 (isn't that a demographic group?).

Well, put together six men between the ages of 18 and 32 with about 40 beers, not to mention (yo ho ho and a) bottle of rum, and let the fun begin. There is much speculation about the bottle of rum, but the only one who appeared to drink it was my 18 year old brother in law. And he was probably the most sober in the group.

The Christmas party was rolling along just fine on its own. There were spirited conversations about how much the Browns suck, how much certain players on the Cavs suck (Zydrunas Ilgauskas, I'm looking at you), how much certain players on the Indians suck (we picked up Jason Bere AGAIN?), and other various topics. Everyone was laughing and enjoying each other's company, when my husband's uncle Mike brought out the karaoke machine.

Karaoke
Oh crap. Karaoke. It's funny at first because uncle Mike does the first song and he puts a "robot voice" filter on, and great hilarity ensues. Owen's aunt does the next song, Abba's "Dancing Queen," and we are rolling with laughter. A few other people begrudgingly take the mike and do various crowd-pleasing songs, and it's still funny to me because I'm laughing at other people's expense.

Owen's aunt is adamant that everyone take a turn, but I'm still laughing because I'm thinking that someone else will refuse and the whole karaoke thing will die down.

But my stoic, non-fun father-in-law takes the mike and does "New York New York," and I know I'm fucked. Suddenly this is not funny anymore, because I realize that I am going to have to choose a song to do and these are my in-laws and I've married into this family and am carrying a child so I can't run away and join the witness protection program when this is over.

I consider myself a decent singer; I can carry a tune. But I don't like being put on the spot. Luckily I chose the Temptations' "My Girl" and everyone sang along with me, so it wasn't so bad. And it made my brother-in-law's rendition of Britney's "Oops I Did It Again" so much funnier after the burden of karaokeing was lifted from my shoulders.

Finally after everyone had a turn, we returned to normal Christmas conversation. Which is pretty much when the 18-to-32 year old male contingent had gathered in the kitchen. By this time the beers had been flowing pretty heavily. They were trying to decide whether or not someone should eat the last pierogie which was languishing in its bowl, and had been for several hours. It had coagulated in butter and had hardened into a greasy, artery-clogging glob. My husband, the man to whom I pledged "to death do us part," declared, "Why not? It's Christmas!" and popped the pierogie into his mouth and ate it in one bite.

Fifteen minutes later, he plopped down next to me, his eyes glazed over, and informed me that he was "right on the edge."

"You're way over the edge, pal," I told him. Sure enough, several seconds later, he was nowhere to be found.

Turns out he was yakking in the upstairs bathroom.

Barfing husband
The beer ran out, and thus the party began to break up. One of my husband's cousins picked up my husband's shoes and handed them to his girlfriend, thinking they were hers, even though she had already put her shoes on. Same thing for my purse, which he gave to her. I'm surprised he didn't try to roll the piano out of the house. They wanted to say goodbye to my husband, but he was nowhere to be seen. That's because he was still praying to the porcelain god.

And there he stayed, long after the last guest left, and we all took turns going up there to knock just to see if he was still alive. I was seriously envisioning a trip to the emergency room. Finally, after about 2 1/2 hours of waiting, we finally got him out, got his coat and shoes on, and I transported his drunk ass home and got him into bed.

I let him sleep until noon the next day and then went in to make sure he was breathing, as I had done several times during the night. I wasn't sure if we were going to make it to my dad's. I would have just gone by myself, except that my car was buried under at least a foot of snow, and at least a two-inch thick layer of ice.

Ice, ice baby
So he got his act together and we drove his four-wheel drive vehicle (thank goodness we had it or we might not have left the driveway at all on Christmas) to my dad's, about an hour away. That was a more subdued event, with everyone poking my stomach and asking questions about the baby that I haven't even had time nor the inkling to ponder yet.

The baby got lots of Christmas stuff, too. So far the baby has four outfits, some toys, and a bassinet. And I got lots of maternity clothes.

It was a whirlwind weekend, and then I had to get up at the buttcrack o' dawn to travel with my boss to Steelerstown. Those little shits in Pennsylvania got a dusting of snow. You can see the grass for heaven's sakes! Memo to self: move away from the lake. Lake? Bad. No lake? Good.

There's much more to report, but it's also lunch time, and I am making a grilled cheese sandwich in our toaster oven in the work kitchen, so it shall have to wait until later.