Maybe Your Day Was Like Mine

If you were the last adult to wake up in your house, when you're usually the first, with your sons and your nephew in the kitchen, coffee already brewed, maybe your day started like mine. If your brother stayed at his house on Christmas Eve to pull a motor and drove up (two hours) pre-dawn this morning, and nearly immediately decided to try both the cool beer classes and the IPA brews he got for Christmas, your day got a little more like mine. If, well before noon, you were the only sober person of drinking age in the house, your day was a lot like mine.

If you cooked Christmas dinner while everyone blasted music, and your oldest son passed out flat on his face an hour before mealtime; if your ex-husband came over and joined in the festivities; if your granddaughters went off with their mom in the late afternoon to see their other grandparents -- well, you day got more like mine. If you put a leaf in the dining room table and used the good china (which your nephew may have said he didn't think he'd ever seen before), and had a remarkably nice meal in spite of all the above, that was like my day.

If, after dinner, you played a highly-inappropriate card game with your sons and nephew while your bother and ex-husband sat in the living room not talking to each other, not because they dislike each other but just because they're not big on conversation, we're on the same page. And if, in spite of your weird family, you had a super-happy day, then your day was just like mine. Merry Christmas.