Christmas

Christmas means bunking down in my parent's house in Wisconsin, watching, like, 80 hours or so of The West Wing on DVD. It means observing my parent's little dog Buster Bumbles as he stress-eats (my brother and I returning home for the Holidays scares him almost as much as thunder). It means my weird extended family (dad's side) and my fun extended family (mom's side). It means being reminded that I am closely related to people who have mullets. It means catching up on Packer-talk. My mom making lists of everything. And my dad telling us the Latin names for all the winter birds in the yard.

Add to that a tree that I have hug-tested in the field right before Dad chopped it down.

Add me breaking out into spontaneous choruses of Christmas carols just to make the dogs howl.

Add my mom telling my vegan brother, "This is vegan. There's no meat in it all. Just three kinds of cheese and about a pound and half of butter. And sour cream. And eggs. But no meat. I made it just for you." Followed by my brother explaining patiently for the gajillionth time, "Mom, if there's dairy and eggs in it, it's not vegan." To which, my mom will counter, with real hope in her eyes, "Well, then, what if I make it with fish?"

And that's Christmas.