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So our son and daughter-in-law came over from where they live, about 5 hours away, to have Christmas tonight.  I don't think my uBPDw has ever managed to deal with the fact he's all grown up and married and lives in another state, and consequently he who was once her favorite can now do nothing well enough to please her.  But an interesting series of circumstances conspired to make it a pleasant evening in spite of her best efforts.

First off she decided for who knows what reason to schedule her colonoscopy for this morning.  With the usual delays and all, and a quick shopping stop, we arrived home just a couple of hours before they were due to arrive, whereupon she went promptly to bed and fell sound asleep.  That was not a problem as we had most of the preparations done.  So I just finished things up and let her nap, and woke her about 20 minutes before they arrived.  So the upshot of all this was that she was still pretty nicely sedated all through the Christmas dinner, just enough to keep her anxiety in check.  To almost any outside observer she would have seemed pretty much like any non having dinner with her grown children.

She has always had two main criticisms of our son, neither of which are true.  One, he "always" parks next door at my parents' house because he's ashamed to park at our house.     Two, he and his wife "never" stay more than two hours when they come to visit, meaning they don't really want to be there   

So beforehand, I texted him and suggested since the weather was bad, they should go ahead and park at our house and then drive up to the granparents later.  "Besides," I told him, "It will mess with your mom's head."     :)

So, since it was rainy and no one was in any hurry, and since my wife was still nice and "relaxed" from her little early morning procedure, we all just hung around the table, ate, drank, laughed, and exchanged presents like actual people do!  Who knew?  She was just fine, only made a couple of little comments that were a bit odd, and actually enjoyed the company of her own offspring!  Imagine that... .  Three hours later, almost to the minute, they excused themselves after lots of selfies and very warm goodbyes.  It was indeed a Hallmark moment.   

I wish I had something more constructive to offer to help with the holidays besides an anesthesia hangover and a lot of behind-the-scenes texting, but it's what worked for us this time.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring; today I'll take what I can get.  :)  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all... .

 

   Ah, I have this as well as Synthroid in common with your wife. After a recent colonoscopy, I was humming to myself, "The Cuervo Gold, the fine Fentanyl, make tonight a wonderful thing." (Aging for me seems to mean I can only get in a Steely Dan mood in conjunction with a medical procedure. Bummer!)

Loved your rendition of the events, Jedi!  That's precious!  Whatever works!

The funniest part it that she likely scheduled the procedure that day so that she could be the centre of attention, and be babied that night.  Instead it just mellowed her out enough to not care that she wasn't the centre of it all!

In our house, we'd say, God works in mysterious ways!

Merry Wednesday,

c.

Indeed He does, C.  Indeed He does. 

Today we had Christmas for the rest of the immediate family.  Again, it was remarkably low-key.  The only things she did were make a few annoying remarks because I kept doing things on my own schedule and my own way instead of exactly when/how she specified. She hates it when she can't program us like robots :) 

Funny you should point out how she likely scheduled the procedure to be the center of attention.  She announced a while back that we were not going to exchange gifts this year; we would only do gifts from "Santa" to our disabled son and if anyone else wanted to give something, they could make a donation in someone's name to a charity.  Sounds nice, doesn't it?

Except starting around Thanksgiving our closet started filling up with gifts for the entire family.  Big, nice gifts.  A PS4 for our 20 year old.  A PS4!  A stereo system for her mother.  Her plan apparently was to make sure nobody gave any gifts but "Santa," meaning her!   

So I sent word to our married son privately that "the no-gift thing" was a fraud, and go ahead and give whatever they wanted to.  I told my mother-in-law and my youngest son the same thing, and I started making a shopping list.   

So basically we ended up doing Christmas almost exactly like we always have in terms of gifts.  Not only that, but we loaded her up with loot.  Her beloved Nook Color tablet died several weeks ago and she has moaned ever since about not being able to afford to replace it (no wonder with all that shopping!).  So I scraped together the funds and got her the new deluxe model.  She was speechless   

I was so proud of my family for not allowing her to run the show, and for being extra generous this year.  Every gift, small or large, seemed to be incredibly thoughtful and well-chosen.  The funny thing is she was the center of attention, not because she schemed to make herself so, but because she was the Mom, and her family showered her with gifts and love!    

Our life certainly isn't a Hallmark movie and I know things will be back to their usual dysfunction shortly.  But it was fun to know that at least for a few hours we were able to kill BPD with kindness.  Maybe it was just a little Christmas magic   

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good night.  My prayer is that you all find a little piece of joy somewhere today.