Wow. You hear these horror stories about various unfortunates at Christmas, when everything that could happen does happen - but you never think it's going to happen to you, though, do you? 

First, in the last weeks before the holiday, my dog collapses because she’s riddled with cancer and the tumour on the base of her tongue has grown so large that she’s vomiting and choking. Emergency surgery took care of it, but I literally worry myself sick, or so I think, but in actual fact it turns out I’ve contracted food poisoning which floors me for a week. Afterwards, while gleefully scarfing all the Christmassy cakes and choc in an effort to put on the weight I’ve lost while ill, my bio-father calls and requests my presence for a day of shopping and dinner - I promptly choke on my chocolate but agree, because it’s not unfair of him to want to see his daughter on Xmas, is it? As expected he tries to buy me out and I spend the entire day trying to fight him off, finally cracking when we find a gothic boutique, where he buys me a hoody for sixty-five freakin’ euro and a Living Dead Souls hoody which I adore despite myself, because it’s all black-and-grey stripes, thumb-holes in the sleeves, secret pockets, a tiny silver skull with ruby eyes dangling off the zip, and the hood has two little points that make it look like you’re hiding little horns or perhaps, even a set of dog-ears under there . . . I promptly feel like the guiltiest, cheapest little sell-out in the world when I get home. And he wanted to buy me more, for god's sakes. In between self-recrimination and last minute rushing for Xmas, I don’t get a second to go online, and then when I finally do on the day before Christmas eve, I haven’t logged on ten minutes when I get a phonecall telling me that my adopted sister Nicita [oldest daughter of my mum’s ten-year boyfriend] has been stabbed by her mother’s abusive drunken $#|@ of a boyfriend. He stabbed a fifteen year old girl. He also whacked her five-year-old brother, kicked a table on my sweet little Erica [who's 13 for crying out loud and absolutely tiny], and tried to strangle the woman who's supposed to be his girlfriend. If that woman doesn't leave him now [because this has been going on for over ten years now] there is no hope for her. Christmas eve Nicita undergoes surgery to save her thumb because it’s been severed to the bone; Christmas day we take our traditional dinner late because her dad brings her home that morning, and the poor guy's driven to the point of distraction with worry and anger, and her older brother [who lives with their dad] is practically stewing in contained violence.

*takes a moment to catch her breath*

In between all this, however, there were tiny magical moments in which I felt the Xmas spirit almost as deeply as I did when I was a kid. I think that perhaps, because of all the chaos, I appreciated the spirit of the season more than I have in years. I just wanna take a moment to wish all you guys out there on LJ, and all your loved one, a very Merry Christmas indeed, if not a slightly belated one. ^_^ I wish you all the best and even better for the coming New Year. 

You guys rock.

But you probably already know that. ^_^