Christmas is coming up soon, and your parents, as they always do during the holidays, are hosting a huge party that the whole family will be at. You, of course, are expected to attend, and no excuses will get you out of it. This is the one time of the year where everyone can see each other at the same time, since you and your siblings are spread out over the entire country. You’re planning on staying at your parents’ house for about a month, which you can do easily since you have a remote job. Once you’ve made it onto the plane, you think of the 10 best reasons to go home for Christmas.
You have a lot of siblings and, because you’ve all been so busy the past year, you haven’t been able to see any of them in person. Naturally, the thought of hanging out with them again for Christmas excites you. One of your sisters, who’s been extremely tied up, hasn’t even had time to call or text you at all. You’re curious about what she’s been up to and how her life is going. Another of your sisters has just graduated college, which is a huge cause for celebration, and you have a surprise gift for her when you get home: a big stuffed animal!
When you walk in the door after catching an Uber home, you smell baking cookies and walk into the kitchen. You’re surprised to find that the kitchen is completely empty. You’d think someone would be in there. You start to exit the kitchen in order to find them, but you stop suddenly and turn back. If everybody’s gone, you think, then there’s no one stopping you from eating some of the cookies that are cooling next to the oven.
After eating about half of the cookies on the plate, you hear a rapid tapping of claws against the wood floor. Running into the room is your tiny old white dog who you haven’t seen in many months. As you bend down to pet her, she jumps up and starts licking your face. She eventually stops after you scratch her behind the ears, and proceeds to roll over onto her stomach so you can rub her belly. You’re probably going to be here a while, since she never gets tired of being pet.
Once everybody arrives and you’ve had the opportunity to chat with everyone, you all decide to sit down and watch some Christmas movies. A hat is passed around the table, and everyone drops a slip of paper in with their favorite holiday film. Once everyone has voted, your mother reaches into the hat and pulls out a paper. The movie that everyone will be watching is Home Alone (which is the one you wrote down). After the popcorn is all cooked and everyone has found a comfortable seat in front of the TV, the movie begins.
Early the next day, everyone hops in a couple cars and drives to the nearest nursery where you’ll all participate in selecting the family Christmas tree. Thankfully, it’s not too chilly outside, so no one’s uncomfortable walking around for half an hour among the pine trees. Grabbing a tree cart (one of those big metal wagons) you follow your family through the rows of trees. Early on, your two youngest sisters hop onto the back of the wagon and tell you to turn around and keep pulling.
Once the Christmas tree has been set up at home, you and some of your older siblings decide to head to the store to do some holiday shopping for your parents. About halfway to Macy’s, one of your sisters says they need to grab a couple things from Walmart, so you make a quick detour. Even though you and your other sister don’t need anything from the store, you both decide to walk around anyway and see if there’s anything worth buying. As expected, everything you look at is cheap and not at all what you’re looking for, but you and your sister have a fun time acting goofy in the store.
It’s a Christmas tradition for everyone in your family to sit down and play a game of Monopoly…at least for a couple hours. The reason that no one ever finishes the game is because you or one of your siblings, without fail, always cheat by attempting to steal money from the bank. While this doesn’t seem like an easy thing to accomplish, everyone has become a pro at this. The trick is to divert everyone’s attention away from the board for a split second while the thief takes a couple $500 bills.
Christmas morning finally arrives and you head into the living room to see the biggest collection of gifts your family’s ever had. The living room is pretty big, but there are so many gifts that they spread out halfway into the kitchen. Since you’re not supposed to touch any of the gifts before everyone comes down, you simply sit at the table and appreciate the vast collection of presents. On the table next to you is a bottle of wine with a bow on it addressed to your brother, who turned 21 this past year.
Later in the day, after everyone has had a chance to examine their gifts more closely, your parents announce that dinner is ready. Since so much food has been prepared, you mom asks if you would help with bringing out the dishes to the table. Among these is a heaping bowl of potatoes, eggnog in a white pot that’s shaped like a chicken, and – everybody’s favorite – pumpkin roll (which is only one of several after dinner desserts).
After all the dinner plates have been placed in the sink and the table has been cleared, the party begins. The festivities kick off with your mom hooking up her phone to the speaker and cranking up the holiday music to the max while bringing out a couple bottles of champagne. A Christmas movie is turned on in the living room, but with the sound off, so everyone will have something festive to watch in the background.
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