checkin in w/ the sandbox for the holidays from your parents'/relatives'/in-laws' house

have been given a crock pot : /

cmon, no shame in a crock pot.

i got all of my holiday visiting done over the last week or so during a series of road trips, and now i can do whatever i want today because i have already visited everyone and had every holiday conversation i need to have. today i will cook, eat, drink, read, and chill. at home.

oh i am not ashamed of a crock pot; it just seems like the sort of thing that i will never use, ultimately leading to disappointed expressions on maternal faces

Turning a crockpot to good use takes grit and determination. The nice thing is that you can have supper waiting for you at the end of the day. The bad part is that is just shifts the food prep to a different time, instead of making it any easier.

Try making soup. Soup is the miracle food of winter.

Crockpots are excellent for mulled wine and keeping a vat of hot chocolate at just the right temperature - ladle it out into a mug preloaded with rum/peppermint schnapps/Baileys/kahlua/etc. I also have made apple butter in mine, though it admittedly took days and days.

We opened presents last night at the assisted living place where MIL resides and am seeing the grandspawn into hyperdrive currently. Interspersed with long phone calls to everywhere. My ear hurts.

My gut tells me mookieproof isn't a big purveyor of mulled wine.

It's so hard to tell on the internets. Nacho cheese and bean dips too, but a crockpot-full is a lot of dip.

Na he always gets me iTunes gift cards that I load up on new apps with.

― Stevie :-D, Sunday, December 25, 2011 7:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol my racisty uncle bought me grindr premium

where are you at judith, i can never work out where you're from

― Never translate German (schlump), Sunday, December 25, 2011 1:22 PM (4 hours ago)

recently im in london but home with the parents is ireland

Na he always gets me iTunes gift cards that I load up on new apps with.

― Stevie :-D, Sunday, December 25, 2011 7:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol my racisty uncle bought me grindr premium

He did not

oh wait you were making a funny! NEVERMIND

My gut tells me mookieproof isn't a big purveyor of mulled wine.

haha i actually like mulled wine, but i don't suppose i purvey it, no

friends >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> family

the 27th, when i return, seems so far away

yeah i might need to have my sister killed

We all stayed in separate rooms surfing the internet/watching TV.

Have not been to any relatives' "house" during the relatively (haha) minor Jewish holiday, but will go to the parents' for regular family dinner tonight. This will involve approximately 13-17 minutes of walking in each direction. I have some confidence that an Ansel Adams wall calendar will be waiting for me. There may also be jokes and/or grumbling about one or more Republicans, and discussion of theatre and other performing arts in New York and/or London. As it is not baseball season, no television will be watched. Any computer issues will be mine and resolved by my Dad.

Decided against a two-hour trip each way to spend time with my mother and her husband and my grandparents (they're not old and I'll see them later this week so I don't feel bad), stayed in all afternoon by myself reading and listening to music, then my brother got out of work early so he came over and got a bit drunk, now vegging out with the telly on and a bag of chocolate - this has been the best, most stress-free Xmas ever, definitely doing this every year from now on.

waiting out niece's latest tantrum/meltdown (imaginary friend won't let her snuggle with Dumbo)

imaginary friend needs to be shot imo

captain morgan + eggnog is making things rather more tolerable

Made an ocarina. Concerned about low level of booze consumption today. Half-attempting to watch Watchmen but I think I may give up.

mookieproof I will trade you a block of scrapple (my parents sent me six blocks of scrapple for Christmas) for your crockpot.

We stayed in Chicago. Jesse is here. Pork roast is out of the oven and Brussels sprouts and potatoes are in process. I always miss my family when we don't travel for the holidays, but I would be pretty bored and wishing fervently to be back in Chicago if I were there so.

I got bad indigestion from my aunt's casserole; I just crop-dusted the living room three times until my crazy uncle left, :D

my mom called me on the phone 2 say bad santa was on comedy central

we're watching a kirk cameron movie about how terrible it is to get divorced on CMT.

yaaaaaaaaaaaay!

my mom suggested that we watch roseanne instead...it actually convinced dad!

FUCK YEAH MOM

Ya I was wondrin' abt you dude. Is it just you 3 again?

yep, we are hanging out. luckily it's everyone's bedtime in about 30 minutes so we should be in good shape then.

i saw you got a $100 gift certificate to a bike shop. that's pretty awesome! what are you going to get?

That is a good question! I already got the pedals and foot straps I wanted secondhand from a friend, so I'm getting new handlebar tape and idk what else. Rear cargo rack maybe? STEVIE D ARE NOW FIELDING SUGGESTIONS

I stayed home alone for the first xmas in aaaages and Im really glad I did. LOL Melb actually had a white xmas day, cuz the city was hit with a MASSIVE FUCKOFF HAILSTORM that destroyed cars, flooded ppls houses, total crazyness.

Hardcore Pawn is on the tv, which is much more of a horribly classist show than I remember.

5-year-old nephew is practicing his reading Dick & Jane aloud and doing a good job.

bout to celebrate jewish christmas w/some friends: dim sum and a movie, baller

― Cooper Chucklebutt, Sunday, December 25, 2011 9:16 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

12 hours later, it was a magical christmas

feeling u

it was p epic, somehow snaked a table at sold out dim sum, mi5 ghost protocol, nachos and my 1st glance of the new nba season accidentally walked into weirdly packed green bay bar, unprovoked near bar fight, champagne, japanese home cooking, drinking at all venues of course, and now for real nba action, thank you santa

Home in MI, went to coooold beach yest w brother to drink beer and look at rolling green waves and tossing beach grass and dunes and trees in touch of setting sunlight. That sight is good for what ails ya.

Today was mega-dose of family, plumb tuckered out now. Wine, beer, ilx, freezing hands from smoking outside.

My dad totally ate my raw kale salad, biggest score of week tbh!!

:)

omg so glad to be home now

sooooo hammered and happy after hangin at BFF's place playin dominoes.q

3rd year in a row of Christmas just the two of us. Kind of like it but actually missing the family a little this year. We are surprisingly sensible at not overeating/eating the bewildering amount of chocolate in the apartment, when it's just us. Watched Dr Who & Pirates of Caribbean 4 and did a lot of cooking.

just went over to my dad's house for the first time in like five years. it is a fucking sty. there's an issue of the economist from 1997 sitting on the steps and it seems at least plausible that the bathtub has not been cleaned since then.

i'm not even a neat/clean freak, but i don't understand how these ppl that raised me live this way

i found my dad's "congratulations for winning the 1956 [town's name] chess tournament" certificate under a pile of my mom's shoes. does that make you feel better?

a) that's awesome -- go dad

b) i don't think you realize the full horror of these environments! i would take pictures but i didn't bring my camera plus i'd feel guilty sharing photos of my parents' squalor with the world

My parents live in a small but 3-bedroom (plus guest attic room) house with my younger brother. My mum mentioned some time ago that they were casually looking for a *bigger place* but couldn't find anywhere. All the rooms are filled up with junk and I am so so desperate to get in there and just chuck it all out. When I was back there last year I was trying to cook in the kitchen which has a lot of counter space yet it's ALL filled up with rubbish except this one tiny square. Example: A letter rack full of those return envelopes you get with bills. I laughed and started to chuck it out but my mum said dad wouldn't let me. Even if you want to keep such a thing, WHY on the kitchen counter?! It's not quite crazy hoarder level but I think they just don't see it. Even in the living room you can't sit down anywhere without moving a bunch of stuff first.

I think that qualifies as hoarding

my dad isn't much better though - I've found things around the house that I distinctly remember putting into the garbage can, only to be rescued at the very last moment by my dad

mookieproof, that is so unsettling.

Mookie, I do get it. I totally 100% get it. That was my "funny" example.

If anyone wants to talk about this offboard, webmail works. I can't rant about my parents on any public board even under 5 layers of pseudonyms. Anyway.

ruh roh, i have 200mb of internet left to see me through life at my mum's house until the 11th of january. i am boned. RIP images, hello mid-90s-looking internet.

drinking with yr family is kinda odd. i get along fine with them all and can even have a good time with them!!!, but it seems a waste of tipsiness, somehow.

I honestly think I have broken one of my molars from grinding my teeth this weekend. Calling the dentist tomorrow.

Where is the thread for checking in from your own residence which has been commandeered by occupying holiday forces?

it got Occupied

james redd and the hungry holidaying blecchs.

They are all so happy, so full of holiday cheer. Trying to restrain myself after the umpteenth adjectival use of "pretty," prohibited by my sixth grade schoolteacher, is some serious I, Robot wrestling, interiorwise