I’m done with exams, so that means it’s time to relax right?  No, there will be no relaxing at home.  I’m taking the few precious days I have before I head back to my parents to prepare for the madness that is Christmas at my house.

Christmas for us means food. Lots and lots of food.  I have a big family, not as in there are a lot of them, they’re just big.  I’m a good 30-50 pounds overweight and I’m one of the skinniest ones in my family.  So when everyone comes over on Christmas Eve we need a lot of food.  And man do we put out a spread.  Meatballs, ham biscuits, weenies and bacon, veggie tray, cheese and meat tray, and sweets galore.

Most of what we have is mostly homemade and since I am away at college, my Mom gets very little done by herself.  When I go home I’ll start to help with making sweets.  Balls to be specific.  Yes, I said balls.  We make peanut butter balls, Oreo balls, and rum balls.  I’m not talking 20 or so of each either.  My Dad especially loves peanut butter balls.  We can’t make them more than a week ahead of time because they would all be gone by Christmas Eve.  So we mix up the stuff and roll out by hand somewhere between 50 and 100 peanut butter balls.  Then, of course, you have to dip them all in chocolate.  Then there are the Orea balls.  We make upwards of 40 of those.  The rum balls are usually made early because you have to let them soak.

That’s a lot of balls huh?  Well the food frenzy doesn’t end there.  My other job when I go home is to handle the weenies.  We always fix the little cocktail weenies wrapped in bacon.  I don’t know how this came to be my job as I don’t like bacon and I really don’t like to touch it (it’s gross!), but I have to take two to three packs of cocktail weenies and wrap them with bacon and put a tooth pick through them.  That’s probably upwards of 50 little weenies by the way.

Now it’s Christmas Eve and the balls are done, the weenies are done, and family is flooding into the house.  All on my Mom’s side, her two nieces and nephew.  One niece has four kids, one of which is married with her own baby.  The other niece has one son and he’s married and they have four kids.  All together it’s about 20 (rather large) people in our little house.  Five of those are young and under 10.  Since I’m the only young adult they don’t see very much, they all love me.  They want to play, have tickle fights, talk to me.  Which isn’t all that bad, I love kids (as long as they’re not mine) but man they can wear me out.

Everyone slowly leaves by 5pm and the house is quiet.  Now it’s just me and my parents and we can let the dog back out into the house.  He doesn’t handle kids well so he gets put in his cage during the madness.  It’s pretty calm after everyone leaves.  We clean up and then chill and watch TV.  I usually get to open one of my presents early and that’s about it for the rest of the night.  Christmas day is a lazy day of eating left overs, watching A Christmas Story, and opening presents.  Then we get a whole year to recover and do it all over again.