Lesson #15,077-50 Shades of Cray Cray!!

The holidays are crazy.  Between the shopping, spending, cooking, visiting, being visited, cleaning. decorating, entertaining and gritting your teeth, the holidays can drive YOU crazy.  You have no excuse not to go and see the people that you only see once a year and you know that you cannot get out of it so you suck it up and cook tons of food and go to Grandma's house and you have to see your crazy Aunt Beverly.  She has always pointed out your flaws at every opportunity.  This is why we only see Aunt Beverly once a year!!  When I was a young teen, I wasn't tall enough. (I never grew so she accepted it.)  When I was a little older, I didn't have any boobs. (Well, they grew when I was like 21-years old.)  Then I wasn't married at 25 so we had to remedy that the next year.  Then for 3 years we didn't have any children so I had to fix that.  I did all of these things in my life just so Aunt Beverly would shut the hell up!  Now I am 42-years old and have a muffin top and you know that old bat had to point out that I had gained some weight.  Again, this is why we see her only once a year.  I suppose she saves up all of her crap, all year long so she can send us all into therapy for the next year.  Oh well, I can wait another year to see Aunt Beverly!! Doesn't everyone have that one person in their family that they can do without seeing?  Crazy Aunts abound!!

If your extended family doesn't drive you crazy, one of your friends' friend might!  I mean, how many parties were we invited to this year?  I know that we are awesome!!  Totally!!  Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in December there is a party to attend.  Then a couple of parties during the week.  Y'all are about to wear me out!!  I cannot be having a hangover 5 days a week!!  And yes I do have to drink to be at these parties because there is one person at each party that you go to that will be the dreaded "Aunt Beverly" some day!! Ya know the type?  Here goes the conversation:  "So what do you do for a living?" "Well, I am a stay-at-home mom so that keeps me very busy." "Oh.................How cute."  "Cute? What is that supposed to mean?  Only my Aunt Beverly is allowed to say that crap to me."!!!  Yes, you know that there is one of these at every party.  You can try to avoid it like the plague but eventually that person will have annoyed everyone else and you will be the last victim of the night!!

Shopping may make you crazy if the parties and the family haven't driven you there already!  Large crowds, grumpy shoppers, rude sales clerks, no parking spaces, long lines at the registers, limited merchandise, uncomfortable shoes, you know what I mean, right?  And forget gift wrapping anymore.  You're lucky if you can even get a box for your shirt!! Half the time they don't even have one of those left!!  The rude clerk just says, "Sorry, we are out of boxes" in that rude voice.  (Like that is going to make it better!! Now I have to go to Target and get some shirt boxes!!  And then I get to go home and wrap the gifts myself!!)  When you are the "stay-at-home mom" you end up doing all of the shopping except for yourself and sometimes you end up doing some of that too!! Not only do you have to buy everyone's gifts, you have to buy the groceries too!!  Oh and don't let one bag of cookie mix go unbaked because the men in your house will drive you crazy until you have fixed all 140 dozen cookies!!

Anyway, after all of the craziness of the holidays, it is nice to just take a nerve pill, have a glass of wine, take an Ambien and go to bed!!  Just breathe.  Take a deep breath, swallow your pills and forget about your crazy family, crazy people at parties and crazy sales clerks.  If you don't, it will make you 50 shades of crazy!!  So, everyone have a wonderful New Years party and forgive Aunt Beverly and the soon-to-be Aunt Beverlys in your life!!