Christmas stress

While I was watching the Queen's speech one of my daughters decided to prepare a totally unneccesary and non traditional vegetable dish which meant that Xmas dinner was delayed by 45 mins so everything was either overcooked or cold. I know I shouldn't have been annoyed, but it wouldn't really have been a traditional Xmas without a row, would it?

Had a lovely day with DD and her family, Sils mum,her daughter and gcs and my DS. Despite DH and Sil having colds it was all great. However nice to have a quiet day today

After several days of baking and prepping for the Christmas family get together, my day of family madness and mayhem has just ended:
1 year old DGS is teething and wailed and grizzled all day.
5 year old DGD surreptitiously ate too much chocolate and threw up on the rug.
Ex H announced, immediately upon arrival, that he couldn't stay long but then stayed for 6 hours, drank like a fish, grew maudlin and left in tears.
Elderly relative, who has mild dementia, couldn't remember where he, or the bathroom, was. He wet himself.
My pavlova was a car crash - absolutely abysmal. It got eaten though.
I stood, with bare feet, on a lego brick and cursed loudly. DGD & DS heard me and I got told off by both.
I'm told it went well and everyone had a lovely time and they're looking forward to the next one.

Our 6 year old GS, always a bit of a showman, decided to stand up about 10 minutes into the Christmas Dinner to say Grace which was in fact his lines from the school nativity. Then whilst we ate he asked us all the cracker jokes, plus a few ‘why did the chicken’ jokes. Surprisingly he didn’t do his magic act.

His great grandfather was a comedian and entertainer in the Music Hall, so it’s in his blood.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment, except for his younger brother who had seen it all before and knew he would see it all again. ?

Christmas day was great but on Christmas Eve the (10 foot) Christmas tree fell down, breaking so many beautiful hand blown glass ornaments I have collected over the years, that have so many memories, it made me cry. Both my adult children who still live at home complained if I had not insisted on such an enormous tree it would not have fallen over. Apparently the cast iron stand is not meant for such a large tree. A pity none of them told me this before I bought it. My husband did not say anything but gave me a I told you so look.

I wonder what most people would have said or done with a husband who had no previous idea of what would be happening on Christmas Day - he dislikes Christmas so we don't usually discuss it (ie avoid discussing it). He usually visits all his 4 children in the morning. This year after the first visit I said I was hungry then we went home for a snack. The intention was for us to have our Christmas dinner later in the day. Then we went to second daughter who has a chocolate devouring 5 yr old. Ate some roast potatoes and christmas pudding. Then of course we didn't want our Christmas Dinner. I feel cheated of this now. It's not the same having Christmas Dinner on Boxing Day with your man at all.

Oh dear, keep taking the pills.

Just wondering....have any of you ladies who are on second marriages, with 2 sets of children/grandchildren ever gone separately to spend Christmas Days with your 'own' family? Can that work?

We didn't fall out because I bit my tongue. DH doesn't like to have anyone else here or go any where else on Christmas Day so just us and our 17 year old son who was cooking the Xmas dinner. DS did really well until just before dinner was due to be served whereupon he disappeared to his bedroom. Instead of calling him back, DH served it all up with a great hurumph before downing Stella, a bottle of wine and half a bottle of rum. This caused him to be cutting about my DM and DD as DM had informed me that she was very upset that DD wasn't coming to the Boxing Day Bash because DD was the only reason she joined us. DH was incensed on my behalf at my DM's sensitivity but became insensitive by keeping on and on about it. We tried to distract him by playing board games but eventually gave up when he became 'overtired'. I comfort ate too much chocolate, sulked when we had to watch Skyfall for the hundredth time before falling to sleep. DS found it all tedious so went to sit back on his computer for which I don't blame him. It wasn't my idea of a fun Christmas either!
Boxing Day was glorious though with the world and his wife joining us. DH apologised for Xmas day and paced himself with the booze. He even managed to be pleasant to DM and DD

BlueBelle duxelles is mushrooms, grated or slivered fine, sauteed slow and long on low in butter. Dux on toast is a waste of effort. Dh uses dux instead of pate on beef wellington. Delicious, just foolish.

We saw my son and daughter a day or two before Christmas. So Christmas’s day it was not really like I just the two of us and we didn’t upset each other. Decided never to buy turkey again as it’s such a waste. Only upset was daughter didn’t get her essential medication delivered in time and spent Christmas Day with her carer driving her many miles to get an emergency supple. She was then so tired she just had a bowl of cereal instead of going out and went to bed. Thank goodness for her wonderful carers.