I Suck At Pseudo-Christmas

yesterday began with a surprise visit from my friends (jen and bill). jen and bill were out and about in the morning. as they were in the neighborhood (the neighborhood being the derby shoppes in hingham), they wondered if both karen and i were around for a quick visit.

in the past, jen and bill would stop over in the morning whenever they were around on the weekends. due to recent events like the passing of our son (braden), however, we haven't really seen them in the mornings on the weekends. so, it was definitely nice to have jen and bill visit again.

as a token of my appreciation for stopping by, i tried to poison jen and bill with my cooking. i don't particularly consider myself a good cook... hence... the poison. my cooking skills are probably why i also rely on whupping my friend's (hot amy) butt in wagered competitions... so that i can get free stuff like a meal. as it was the morning, i prepared french toast for jen, bill, karen and myself. (for anyone curious, neither jen nor bill had seconds... so maybe my french toast really was poisonous.) needless to say, it was fun to hang out with jen and bill again in the morning.

shortly thereafter, karen and i headed off to celebrate pseudo-christmas. now, i suck at pseudo-christmas. for anyone curious, pseudo-christmas is a celebration of christmas with the family... just not on christmas day. in general, christmas day is a tough day to gather everyone together. add to that stress the fact that people need to leave early or arrive late after visiting other families... celebrating christmas on christmas day can be quite hectic and people never really get to enjoy the company of each other.

so, it was devised by members of karen's family to celebrate "pseudo-christmas"... which is basically christmas, just not on christmas day. and with many things in karen's family, pseudo-christmas has since become a tradition.

anyway, pseudo-christmas this year was originally to be held the weekend of my birthday. as the weather was not cooperating (because it snowed for three days straight) that weekend, pseudo-christmas had to be rescheduled... for yesterday.

this year was definitely an interesting pseudo-christmas. not a lot of karen's family were able to attend pseudo-christmas yesterday. (aside from karen's immediate family, there were her relatives from lowell: aunt denise, karlene, and tommy; and a surprise visit from karen's uncle charlie and aunt frieda.) most importantly, karen's grandmother (whom we refer to as "nana") was not able to attend. that fact is probably the most important because pseudo-christmas is held at nana's house... due to tradition. (i fear that yesterday will be the last pseudo-christmas because nana's house will be put up for sale some time later this year.)

(the video below is of our neice, kaleigh... our nephew, pj... and tommy... dancing during pseudo-christmas.)


personally, pseudo-christmas yesterday seemed more like a family gathering rather than a celebration of christmas. of course, i could be biased because i have not been feeling much holiday spirit since braden passed away. to me, it just seemed like everyone was going through the motions... ghetto swap and all. (part of the tradition of pseudo-christmas is the "ghetto" swap... which has been renamed to be more swapper-friendly because there are young impressionable children in the family now. the basic gist is a yankee swap of old junk.)

thankfully, i was able to get rid of my "kkk santa" in the swap. interestingly enough, i ended up with a cookbook. perhaps the cookbook is a sign that my cooking is indeed awful. karen was also able to get rid of our shrinky dink oven (much to the joy of kaleigh) that we won at a chinese new year party... which my friend (aimee) reminded me that was another time we actually won something.

all in all, pseudo-christmas was an interesting time. i wonder what pseudo-christmas will be like this year. i can only imagine...