I arrived in Eaton Friday night, just in time for the second annual installment of what is fast becomming a tradition I like to call, Two Chinese at a Mexican restaurant.

My Dad’s best friend from college, David Fee, aka Uncle Fee, married a Chinese woman named Hui (Wee) last year. She has a 15-year old son named Yes Sun (sp). Hui and Fee met on the Internet. Last Christmas we took them to Fiesta Charro for dinner and they loved it apparently, so this year, on their way through town, we took them back.

Their English has gotten much, much better, and Hui is about 6-months pregnant. But they’re having a hard time sorting out her Visa for reasons no one can apparently explain in any meaningful way except that it has something to do with terrorism concerns. !!

Yes Sun is into music. He’s also socially awkward and very dramatic. We watched Phantom of the Opera, at his request, and he sang along and conducted the entire thing. I felt like I was in a very odd movie all night.

Saturday morning Jen, Chris and Tyler arrived and the Fees went on their way to Gatlinburg. I started to bake pies. I forgot to put my first pie in a pie pan. Hilarity ensued. Er, sortof. The pie shell collapsed in the oven about 10 minutes into baking and pecan goo went everywhere. The oven caught fire. My mother, who has a horrible fear of flames tossed a fire extinguisher at my Dad, grabbed the phone and fled the house. Since ovens are built to withstand this sort of thing, all that really happened was a lot of annoying smoke and a very big mess. Thankfully nobody discharged the fire extinguisher or called 911, but it was quite an event anyway.

The remaining pie was baked to completion at the neighbors house and once it was out of the oven we all figured it was time to drink.

Most of the drinking, singing, dancing festivities were pretty normal Morrison fare. And then my Dad fell into the Christmas tree.

Picture it, Eaton, 2006! My inebriated and celebrated father has stumbled into one too many pieces of furniture and completely stopped making sense. Mom tells him to go to bed, so like a good husband, he starts going around and unplugging things. Never mind that there were still six people awake in the house–it’s his job!

Mom was in the kitchen with Jen and her friend Carrie, Michael and I were out on the porch. Jen says all of a sudden they heard, “clinkle clinkle clinkle!” and Mom ran into the family room and exclaimed, “Oh SHIT! Wayne! I told you to GO TO BED!”

Jen says to Carrie: “You go look, I can’t do it!” So Carrie pokes her head in, and says, very matter-of-factly, “Your father just fell into the Christmas tree.”

Instead of going to bed, as instructed, my father darted out onto the front porch with Michael and I, looking sheepish but calm. I had no idea anything had happened yet. Then he started to tell us something, gestured wildly with his arms and knocked a glass of beer out of my hand, which promptly shattered all over the patio.

Nobody was hurt and damage to the Christmas tree was minimal. There were only a few smooshed presents. Thankfully, we got a lot of soft things this year.

After we reassmbled that mess and got Dad to bed, Jen, Michael, Me and Carrie decided to go bar hopping. In Eaton there are four choices for this. The choice we made was the 2:30 Club. Nothing good ever comes from the 2:30 Club. Trust me on this. There is always a bar fight. The one on this night involved at least four people, two of them women. We just all kinda slid out of their way.

Michael, who shouldn’t be drinking for all sorts of reasons, must have had at least 5 Jaeger Bombs (which my Mom kept calling Jagger bombs), and when we finally harassed Jamie into coming out to join us, Michael got all up in this face and kept saying shit like, “I know you think I want you, and you’re not interested and all, but let me just be the one to tell you that YOU ARE NOT ALL THAT!”

Sooo, I shuffled Michael out of the bar and dropped him home at his mother’s before dragging my ass to bed at about 2.

Sunday, Dad was in the doghouse all morning. My Mother was COLD. Chris had never witnessed Mom angry with Dad before and he just kept looking at me with wide eyes and trying not to laugh. Dad came out in his pajamas and walked into the kitchen to try and say good morning. People, my mother put her back to him and walked right the hell out. Dad went out on the porch looking sheepish and obviously the wheels in his head were spinning on what the hell he was going to have to do to get out of this one. I told Chirs, “he’d better start the laundry or run the sweeper or something because he is on the list.” Mom finally relented, it being Christmas and all, but for an hour or so there my Dad looked like a scolded puppy.

Later, while Mom and Dad were at church (where one of the holiday soloists apparently fainted), Chris and I peeled potatoes and broke the garbage disposal on the peels. He spent that hour up under the sink with a wrench trying to fix it before Mom came home to try to cook our big holiday meal. Meanwhile, Jen and I both succumed to horrific hangovers and went back to bed.

Thankfully things settled down for the roughly 12 hours of Christmas Eve church, holiday movie watching and ultimately, Christmas morning with Tyler and fabulous gifts and warm cinnamon bread. My family rocks, and it really was a super Christmas–just one of the weirder ones on record.

The weekend came to a close with me dropping a full tin of Chex Mix all over the living room and then bursting into tears about it. I love Chex Mix. It was ruined. I had had enough.

How was your Christmas?