Merry Christmas: Hasta en las mejores familias, photo from the 80's



Manger Scene on a wreath

RantWoman sincerely blesses and thanks Little Sister for her habit, manmy years, of givingthe family some or another framed photographs as Christmas gifts. This photo is from somewhere in the late 1980's.

RantWoman notes:

--When RantWoman posted and tagged this on Facebook, several of RantMom's church groupies left "We love your Mom (and probably for some of the very reasons she drives RantWoman crazy)" messages.

--RantWoman recalls a few years ago making RantMom open up a bit about family stresses to her church in MT and being humbled to learn that, OF COURSE, many other parents in her church also had considerably less than perfect and even darned problematic children.

--RantWoman is VERY grateful right now both for a sense of very appropriate pastoral care about such family matters as RantWoman has cajoled RantMom into leeting be shared and for very practical help while RantMom recovers from emergency surgery in early December. Oh, and and now also some kind of staph infection. (hold that entire topic in the Light.)

--RantWoman counts as a blessing the sighs of relief she hears from RantMom's adhoc PFLAG chapter whenever RantWoman speaks in ordinary flow of conversation of some or anotehr same-gender couple.

As for the family:
--Everyone has AWESOME glasses glare.

--Everyone is smiling, unlike, say, RantWoman and RantBrother at RantBrother's very first Christmas. RantBrother was too small a baby lump to have recognizable facial expressions; RantWoman assuredly was not.

RantWoman thinks the smiles in the photo were genuine. But the tides of time and experience have crashed in and out several ways both before and since the photo.

In particular:
Little Sister does not wish to be in RantBrother's company, for good reason even if some parts  of why RantWoman is not sure she is even expected to understand.

RantMom ardently wishes all her children would conform to her expectations about how we should interact including all being in the same place at the same time. She sends email with everyone's addresses exposed expressing that wish. RantWoman considers it more important to encourage RantMom to find mental health assistance than to try to get RantMom to understand the point of Blind Copy. RantWoman has not exactly invoked "Cope" in Little Sister's direction, but...

RantWoman also merely collects data about everyone's contact info all over RantMom's refrigerator. RantWoman can understand why Little Sister might be upset but the last time RantBrother visited, he could barely figure out the route from RantMom's to RantWoman's and barely keep track of RantWoman's cell number so RantWoman thinks it is very unlikely he can actually use any of Little Sister's contact info.

To further ensure outpourings of family sentiment this year, RantWoman sent Little Sister email of the form "I do not enjoy watching ... in Spanish and I do not wish to argue about it in front of RantMom."

In other words, the whole telenovela needs to be held in the Light. 
RantWoman also called RantMom up and said "I have chicken. I have squash. I have cranberries. Let's do Christmas dinner." And this turned out to be just about right for RantMom's recovering from surgery energy level.