Merry... ?

As our dedicated, competent and infallable Administration mulls over their ever dwindling options (read: Option 1 - Dignify this terrible decision somehow.) with our go-getter, defeat is not an option and, let's face it, manly military brass we, the American People, spend our time grappling with the more mundane aspects of life during wartime, like trying to get through the holiday period relatively unscathed. And, as for relatives, we have few here in WNY so we always consider ourselves a scathe free zone. We spent Xmas day in the tranquil environs of exhaustion as the boys muddled their way through the tech world where, unlike the old lego days, my assistance is uncalled for if not downright frowned upon, that is until something goes terribly wrong and they fry something really important and I have to intervene before they wipe my hard drive and 'she who must be obeyed' loses her entire photo collection and I'm in the guest room for an extended but undetermined time. Xmas dinner presumed itself upon us with our one living close family member, the wife's 90 year old mother, who decked out in her seasonal finery... furs and silks, spent an inordinate amount of money at one of the finer eateries of Buffalo. She, wrongly, felt that we had ignored her through dinner, relegating her few oft repeated bon mots to distractions to the greater discourse. It is telling that the greater discourse between my wife and two young sons relied heavily upon the gluttonous eating habits of our esteemed patron as she carved her way through a fine menu, spectacularly outeating my 13 year old half bear/half boy of a son. We quibbled over the driving arrangements from the restaurant to home... I had gotten myself half in the bag prior to the festivities in a vain attempt to create, for myself, a half world where none of this was really happening to me and dining with Satan was just a scene from an old Joan Crawford movie. As the reality surged at my incomplete fortress and as she kept ordering more and more food, I, naturally, drank more and more, the second martini was unnecessary, the second bottle of Chateaux D'Chassilley gratuitous and the nightcap superfluous... I was a blithering idiot... happily slumped in the back with the two boys we dropped off Mrs. Creosote and wended to the family nest. Another Christmas Day over, now the holiday season can really kick-in, now the serious shopping can begin, now the chance to sin invested in our drunken revelries.