Today was fine; I am all out of Spoons though. My parents departed about an hour ago, all is quiet now and I'm drinking a can of San Pellegrino and have taken two capsules of paracetamol to stave off the horrible tension headache that I'm currently experiencing. Boxing Day is our concession to hosting an event over the Christmas Period.
My mum told me that she wasn't best pleased with my dad's present, which was a blackhead extraction kit. This is an odd choice of gift for a woman in her late sixties, but to be honest, the whole concept of present buying is kind of lost on me too, that's because most people are impossible to please. Take this as an example: I'm pushing my son in his wheeled buggy though a busy branch of M&S during the December rush - the chair topples over because of the weight on top of it, but hey, it's OK, because these presents are for my two nieces. Fast forward to Boxing Day - here's the exact conversation between me and my neurotypical brother:
Brother: "Thanks for the gifts, the girls loved their dungarees."
Me: "I didn't buy them any dungarees."
Brother: "Oh, no, that's right, you didn't. Let me explain - they received a duplicate of your present from their other aunt, you know, the one from the maternal side of the family and someone I think of more highly than you, so me and my wife took the decision to return yours."
Me: "Oh, thanks a bunch. From now on I'll not bother to buy any more presents then."
Of course, that was until Christmas 2015 or 2016 (I cannot recall exactly which one) when my husband decided to 'take care of the present thing'. He sent an email to my brother, explaining in detail the type of table tennis table our son wanted and even included an Argos link. My brother was apparently 'too busy to read his emails', so nothing was bought. My mum, who was in one of her horrible difficult lazy bitch moods that particular Christmas, started verbally berating my husband after I'd popped upstairs to get away from the overwhelming social thing. I heard it all from the landing - she started crying, stating that "it was all her fault ..." that kind of emotional blackmail I have come to expect from my mother.
That was the last Christmas Day we've ever hosted; we're never going to let anyone in apart from the three of us and our cats in ever again.
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