If I could describe this Christmas in one sentence/song lyric, it would be as follows. "So this is Christmas..." As most (all?) of you know, I spent this Christmas in Florida with my grandparents/aunts/uncle. Christmas eve consisted of 4 hours at the beach, dinner with 14 random old people and my family followed by a candlelight church service in which the minister compared Jesus to a GPS and instructed us how to hold a lit candle (flame upward) . We then went back to the hotel where my sick brother had been sleeping the entire day, literally.

This morning, we woke up and caught the last of the continental breakfast (barf). We then went to my grandma's condo ( a 40 by 20 cell in a racist retirement cult village) and sat around for a few hours. My mom, dad and I went to the beach again where some lonely old people set up their fine china for a Christmas feast on the beach. We had Christmas turkey (whatever happened to ham?) at my grandma's where the real fun began. My grandma (72 years old) began the "that's what she said" rally that lasted an entire hour. We watched Elf, visited my other ultra-religious grandparents and exchanged gifts. My Christmas gifts: $30, a kohl's gift card, tickets to the Rockettes, money in May towards a laptop, a "Jesus thinks I'm beautiful" book, a pearl bracelet and some smelly lotion.

My reflection: It's definitely the weirdest Christmas I had. I would much rather spend it at home in the sub-zero degree weather, but I'm really grateful that I got to go on such a great vacation with all my family.

My thoughts on Santa are as follows: I stopped believing in Santa when he stopped believing in me.