Oh… Christmas, Christmas, Christmas… What can I say about today?

My family and I had crepes this morning for breakfast. Super organic crepes. If it could, the bag of crepe mix would have had a superhero cape because it was just that full of seeds and other healthy things. It tasted super healthy, even with copious amounts of strawberry jam (yum) and peanut butter (not on the same crepes… but damn, does it ever taste good). Opening presents was kinda fun, my sisters got me a 2g micro SD card (from J, for my Nintendo DS) and pretty cupcake liners (from D, and also a ‘gift certificate’ for bakeware, score!). There was also chocolates from my mom (Lindt… delicious! and some chocolates from the someone at work). Tertiary Jane was a birthday/Christmas present from my parents, so she’s been out for a while… And was not repackaged and put underneath the tree.

I went with my family to my aunt and uncle’s new house for Christmas lunch. And after, I remembered all the reasons why I don’t like family lunches (or dinners… or meals in general). There is nothing like sitting there and eating your lunch and taking a sip of tea and then your aunt commenting on how you’re the only one who’s had seconds of the main dish. Insert coughing/choking on the tea (which was delicious tea, by the way – she did give me a box of it, it’s a type of green tea that she’s never been able to find in Canada, she bought it in Taiwan) and then I politely go “Pardon?” (in Cantonese). And then she repeats herself. “Oh, you’ve had seconds of [insert dish name here]” (I can’t translate things well, lol). Apparently she’d been paying attention to my eating habits? And if she had been paying attention, my first bowl had been only half filled, as opposed to everyone else who had a completely filled first bowl. And then came the whole “So how much weight have you gained over the last few months?” Hello, appropriate extended family Christmas lunch conversation topics? Not really.

I have never been comfortable with the family (extended, or not) talking about my weight. And, for some odd reason, it’s always during a meal. My aunt mentions it. J is always “too skinny”. D looks like she hasn’t been eating much lately. And me? “Oh, Michelle, have you been gaining weight lately?”. My mom just laughs and then talks about how much I eat at home, compared to everyone else. At home, for Christmas dinner (with just the immediate family – we had leftovers), my sisters were talking about my weight, and my mom joined in. I asked them to stop it (because I was eating at the time and because I’m in a ‘normal weight range’ for my height/age/whatever). And they continued. So I left the dinner table and went to my room. Where I have stayed, I only left to go to the kitchen to do some chip swaps for my dolls.

And, as always, odd family gossip gets revealed during holiday meals together. Like so-and-so recently got married, but the new spouse only got divorced a week before the wedding and the new spouse used to be (or is?) her boss (how scandalous) and someone else got a loan from a loan shark…? With daily interest at 30%? Yeeeeeeep, I have awesome relatives, right? In my defense, I didn’t pick them.

Also… My dolls had a good Christmas morning and Sophie and Tertiary Jane got new green chips. =)