Family Jurl

I'm pretty sure there's nothing more wonderful or more irritating than family. My mother is particularly good fodder and I plan to devote an entire blog to her one day, but have been unable to muster the strength required to tackle such a wacky subject. So for now I'll give a small example of her condition known as Freaking Crazy Nutbag, or FCN. Tonight we had a family Christmas party at my house and my mom always has to have something "fun" for us to do because eating and drinking isn't enough fun on it's own. This year we had a white elephant gift exchange. I got a chia head in the shape of Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Someone was actually going to steal it, but my three year old got upset so my kind cousin relented the chia head. Damn three year old. I spent the rest of the game yelling "abort!" anytime someone reached for one of my mother's packages because her contributions were all my cast offs.

My mom is a collector of meaningless, valueless, junk. Every gift bag she's ever come in contact with resides in a closet at her house along with every scrap of tissue paper ever to be unfolded in her sight. I don't know why she collects all these bags because she winds up buying bags at the dollar store with misspelled greetings (like Merry Christma!)

So after the exciting gift exchange she brought out a bag of purses and ancient home interior decor to try an unload on our family. My cousin Ann, who also has FCN, examined a brush bag (free with an Este Lauder purchase of $20.00) and wondered if it was a penis holder. What-what? At the end of the day my Mom went home with everything she brought plus some additional gift bags.

Ann actually brought the best gift of the night with her Pooppouri. That's right, Pooppouri. It's a little plastic spray bottle filled with a lemon scented liquid that you spray on the surface of toilet water to create a lemon scented barrier once your poop hits the splash zone. She brought it for my mother. Nuff said.

The group pretty much divides along gender lines- men in the den watching football, but mostly dozing while the women congregate in the front room cackling and singing carols. It's really for the best because there are a few couples that can't get along on a good day much less in close quarters with hot holiday sweaters and red wine raising temperatures.

Towards the end of the night we had some real excitement with a minor mother-daughter squabble that spread to my mother and myself. Ah, family. Merry Christma! I mean Merry Christmas!