Christmas

I'd like a do-over of Christmas, please. I have told too many people too much of this story, and I can't quite face putting it all down in type, so let's do a swift bullet list of highlights and then we'll move on to happier topics, shall we?

• If you spend the holiday with people who are lacking any Christmas excitement, it's best to bring it with you (in a box purchased at the Dollar Store if necessary) and shove it down their throats. I did not do this, and should have. You have to make the Christmas you want - I should have worked harder.
• Devon Avenue as a Christmas dinner option is a great idea - so good many other people have had it. When it takes over half an hour to find parking, nothing good will come from the evening.
• Similarly, if it is a frustrating headache to rewire the VCR, you will probably not enjoy whatever you end up watching on it.
• If you turn your head sharply and your companion happens to be sitting very close to you, your skulls will crash together. It will be painful. If you are the type that under periods of great stress and exhaustion collapses into tears, it will happen along with this pain. It may cause a breakdown that includes the sobbed phrase: "I can't make you happy...."
• If you are banking on visiting your own family to bring the joy of the holiday season back to your life, don't.
• No really, they're busy people, and they've already done Christmas without you.
• If you rush to your hometown in order to FINALLY get wedding invitations ordered, all the shops will be closed.
• When they open, all of the people who could get your invitations ordered will be absent.
• Your mother, would could have avoided all this by calling beforehand and making an appointment, will be busy babysitting her grandchildren.
• Her grandchildren, who are adorable, could have been somewhere else, leaving her free to help with these very time-sensitive wedding plans.
• Oh, wait, that's right, the grandchildren, who will hopefully be with us for many years to come, are more important than getting this once-in-a-lifetime event off the ground. I mean, it's just her daughter's wedding, nothing as cute and fun as grandchildren.
• Your mother, by the way, will have changed her mind about where she wants the invitations ordered, but not bothered to tell you that.
• All of this "helpful" behavior will enrage your fiance. Have fun smoothing those feathers.
• When you get back, having dutifully written out mentally, "Even though I am the one getting married, what I want is of no consequence" a LEAST one hundred times, you will need at least two weeks for any part of your life to feel like yours.
• Merry Christmas.