We went to my dad’s house for Thanksgiving. They live in AZ, just south of Laughlin, NV and extremely far away from San Jose, CA. We drove. The going was okay but the coming home was horrid. It is virtually impossible to get into any major metropolitan area in CA on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I knew that but we did it anyway. The kids were great. I told them they were practicing for their flight to Scotland next summer.

Last week was a biggie. I’m involved with this fundraising organization that puts one a one week series of events and raises around $400,000 for 4 mental health organizations in the area. Since I’m sure that one day I’ll use the services of one of these organizations, I’m happy to do my share early on. The main theme centers around 12 (I think) amazingly decorated Christmas with lots of packages. Then at the events all week, raffle tickets are purchased and put in the boxes for the tress. The tree drawing is done at the last event (a grand ball). There’s fashion shows and a children’s party and it is fun. But it kept me very busy during the week because certain volunteer time is required to be in this group.

And now this week I’m trying to pick up the pieces of Christmas for us. Lord it gets harder and harder each year. But if husband and I can settle on a gift for the prince and I can decide something for my mother, the worst of it will be over. It will be husband’s responsibility to get his parents something as well as the names we have over there. Or at least get me the idea….I don’t mind doing the leg work, it is the idea generation that makes me batty.

Expect that I had a great idea for my dad! They just got a 64in T.V. (yes, it is huge, very cool) so they are getting 4 months of Netflix from us. Perfect.

On the personal front, son has calmed down from a particularly brutal round of torment mom. This one took on a viciousness previously unknown in these parts. I suppose that is the adolescence part of the equation but let me go on record saying it is not fun. Husband was no help as he was egging on certain situations instead of teaching his son how to be a man. So then of course, dad and stepmom wanted to know why husband wasn’t so supporting. Ah, life gets so complicated some times. And then my mother is extremely upset that I went to my dad’s house for thanksgiving (and the backstory on that one is so long and complex) so I got to get yelled at by my mother on Thanskgiving day and then have a nasty message on my machine when I got home from driving over 500 miles in 12 hours in bad traffic for the last 5 hours of the drive. And we wonder why I hate the holidays. Two very dear friends are suggesting I make the leap to therapy and while I’m completely convinced that they are right, I’m having trouble making the phone call. But I did get a certain ‘talking to’ by the more local of these friends, which should help the less local of these friends to know that I’m slowly getting there and she’s got someone on her side. (wow, what a messy sentence….but hopefully it make sense to the person who is suppose to understand what I’m saying).

Anyhow, just business as usual.