Christmas with The Family--as an adult

Christmas with your family as a kid is a blast. You wake up, get to open a shit-ton of presents, then get to ignore the family and play with your presents until it's time for them to feed you. I think the worst part of Christmas as a kid is having to eat that nasty green bean casserole you have never liked.

Christmas as a teenager...well, kind of sucks. You still live at home. The gifts generally aren't that great, because your family thinks you are too old to be spending a ton of money on. You have to sit around and talk to everyone while they're generally get drunk on eggnog and whiskey while you can't.

Christmas with your family as an adult is AWESOME. Suddenly, you get a lot more of the jokes you never understood when you were younger. The family considers you part of everyone else and old enough to be spoken to as an adult. Christmas time becomes the time to share all the things you never felt comfortable telling your parents as teenager or hearing all the embarrassing stories no one felt you were old enough to hear previously. Plus, there's nothing better than watching the kids' faces as they open their gifts. That kind of joy is just not something that can be caught on camera, properly.

Also, I just had Christmas at my Mom's and my little sister is getting so big!