The first and most used of the Let’s-Get-The-Family-Together holidays is over. In our case it was fairly painless as most of the family has moved to warmer climates. And they filled me with envy when I looked out the window and saw eight inches of ‘White Christmas’ covering everything Christmas Eve. But we still have enough family nearby to easily fill a living room.

I never complain too loudly about any family get-together because the house does get totally cleaned. I’ve never really understood the reason for house cleaning solely as part of a special occasion. It’s not like anyone would have a problem with our day-to-day lifestyle during a visit. We don’t dress up especially to visit family so I guess we dress up the house instead.

And another thing the bugs me about holidays is why it seems we need to use them as a reason to go see family. During the visit you can count on someone saying, “It’s been too long.” or “My how you’ve grown.” Jeez, people you only live five or ten miles away. It’s not like any one still has to hitch up the horses to the sleigh to get over here. Make a tradition of breaking tradition and visit on a regular basis.

The best part of this holiday being over is being able to watch TV and not seeing commercials with some car dealer forcing their kids to say “Have a Merry Christmas” in unison in an attempt to endear us enough to go in buy a car from them. “Hey Frank Ford, get your kids off my lawn!”

That’s only a partial list of why I’m glad the holidays are over. I’m sure I could complain some more but I try not to do that with my mouth full. So I’m gonna go now and have some more leftovers.