Christmas at Mom's

Finally celebrated Christmas with Mom and family.

What with the fractured family of divorces, we've always had multiple celebrations at Christmastime. Mostly it stems from the divorces where children were involved, specifically my parents and my sister. My sister Marianne's daughter, and my niece, Erin has historically spent Christmas day with her dad and her half-sisters. Then she and Main would come down from New Jersey to stay with Mom and we'd celebrate Christmas usually on the Saturday following Christmas. Then we'd have Christmas with Dad on Sunday.

So most years on actual Christmas Day I'd be at a wife's or girlfriend's parents. But this year Dawn decided to spend Thanksgiving with her folks instead of Christmas. This was partly to offset the multiple Christmases, that come with being married to me, that are admittedly a little exhausting. Plus this year my brother and his wife didn't really have the time off and Erin I think had New Year's Eve plans.

So anyway, we ended up celebrating Epiphany this year. And it was fun.

It's likely the last Christmas in my Mom's house in Springfield, as she's trying to sell it and move to Florida. It was a little odd because her doberman Rolfie died, gosh, before last Christmas even. Plus, since she's trying to sell it, she's not smoking inside, and she broke up with Bill so he's not there smoking and Rob & Carol both quit smoking. So there was nobody smoking, which was good because it bothers Dawn so much. And I've been quit so long now that I'm starting really not like it.

Something was wrong with the upstairs toilet. It was knocking weirdly after flushing, like the inlet pipe was banging against the wall or something. John apparently fiddled with it later and fixed it. And Mom said that the washing machine's hot water inlet hose was blocked with calcium deposits, but Rob couldn't unscrew the hose from the bibb to fix it. I should have brought my basin wrench.

Mom made these ginormous stuffed pork chops. Normally I'm veggie with Dawn, but I had one, partly out of a When-in-Rome kinda attitude and mostly because they were delicious. Mom didn't have one. She doesn't eat much. I'm worried about her.