Actually we're decorating the tree with Legos.

This weekend our dryer died, and we had to purchase a new one. We explained to Henry that the dryer would be his one and only Christmas present. He asked if he could take a tumble or two in it, and we said only on low heat.

I'm kidding! He can't fit in there. Our dryer did die, though, that part is true. Scott and I were sad, and we turned our pants pockets inside-out and walked around like that for a while, feeling sorry for ourselves. But then this morning, an editor called and offered me some money to reprint one of my posts. The fee came out to exactly as much as the dryer cost. So it seems that we'll have a Christmas after all! And maybe a little Hanukkah, as well!

I'm hosting Christmas for my family this year, and the pressure is on. My parents have always done Christmas, every year, since before Christ was born. Somehow they got Nat King Cole to sing all these festive songs about this savior who no one even knew about. My parents have powers. Anyway, I'm a little intimidated. My mother is trying to help, except by trying to help she's making me feel increasingly inadequate. A few weeks ago she brought over some Christmas-themed trays, Christmas votive-candle holders, and several decorative wreaths she fished out of her Christmas Decorative Wreath box in the Decorative-Wreath wing of her basement. Then she asked me if I wanted to use her "Christmas goblets."

"Whurrrgh?" I said.

"You know, my festive goblets. I use them for every Christmas. You're going to need those, right?"

"I kind of thought I could just use my regular wine glasses and stuff," I said.

"Oh," she said, in the tone she'd use if I said we were going to decorate our tree with steaming dog turds. "Yeah, I mean, of course you can. I just thought, you know, because they're so festive and nice. But that's fine too."

She also wanted to know if I wanted her fancy red Christmas plates. We have plates, I said, but thanks. (I mean, usually we eat out of our cupped hands, but I think we could fashion some flat-surfaced food holders from old pie tins.) Okay, but, uh, don't we want her extra-special linen Christmas tablecloth? Christmas placeholders? Christmas napkins? We're going to need Santa, too, right? Because she's got him in the basement, next to the reindeer stalls.

Believe me, I love my mom, and she has excellent taste. It's not that I don't like her stuff; it's that I don't want to have her Christmas over here. I want our own decorations, even if they're from Target. I just heard her gasp all the way from Long Island. I swear we're going to go to the store and nothing will be there. "Some woman came earlier today and cleared the place out," the baffled salesperson will tell us. "She looked a little bit like you, actually. Said something about keeping all this cheap crap away from her daughter? She wasn't making much sense."

Now she wants to know what I'm making for dinner. I'm going to tell her we're ordering in some Chinese, just to hear her head explode. Hey, my husband is Jewish, and we have to respect his traditions, too.

UPDATED TO ADD: I turned off comments because I think some people misinterpreted my statements about my mother. I was exaggerating for comic effect, like I do, and in reality (boring, boring reality) I can't wait to have Christmas here and she and the rest of my family will be thrilled with whatever I serve. I know some of the comments would hurt her feelings, and that's the last thing I want. "Merry Christmas! I got the Internet to make you cry!" It just ruins the holiday mood, you know?

My mom, folks!

"You're not going to believe what happened with my stove."

"WHAT HAPPENED."

"It's okay, don't panic."

"Don't scare me like that."

"Yesterday, I'm sitting in the dining room, drinking some tea, when the ignitor just turns on."

"What? For no reason? You were baking something?"

"No, that's what I'm saying. The oven was off, and suddenly the ignitor started clicking. First it was going click, click, click, then it went clickclickclickclick and suddenly there are flames and black smoke shooting out of the vent—"

"BLACK SMOKE?"

"Yes, so I ran to the outlet and unplugged it, and luckily it stopped right away."

"I don’t like this!"

"No kidding."

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?"

"The repair guy's coming tomorrow, and until then, you know, we'll be using the microwave a lot."

"Alice, I hate to say this, but I think there's something wrong with that oven."

She doesn’t, incidentally, but if she reads this we’re probably both out of the will.

Henry (holding up a set of novelty fake mustaches that, inexplicably, I bought for my dad): What are these?

Me: Those are mustaches for Grandpa.

Henry: But Grandma already has a mustache.

You deserve better but this is all I have.

Yesterday, probably still reeling from the psychic trauma of Thanksgiving Weekend With Every Living Relative, I forgot to take some Very Special Medication that Mommy Takes Because of Something You Did. I’m such a delicate wee thing that my dosage is extra-extra-low because that is all my willowy frame requires, but the bad thing about being on the teensy-weensy dosage is that once it leaves my body I’m WHOOPSY DAISY paddling around in a sloppy hell of withdrawal. So today I woke up soaked in sweat, reeling around my suddenly tilt-y apartment. When I saw two Henrys reaching for me from their two cribs, I knew I was in trouble. Fortunately the Husband is working nights this week, so once I roused him from his slumber, which I did by gently calling “GET UP I’M DYING OH CHRIST,” I quickly medicated myself and returned to bed, where I had dreams that I was Buffy the Vampire Slayer (how sad am I, still dreaming about a show that ended years ago? Quite sad) and a Herbie-the-Love-Bug-type car was roaming the streets of Brooklyn, announcing that it was the harbinger of the apocalypse. (If I wrote the script to this movie, I would title it DOOM BUGGY. That is an excellent title, and you, privileged reader, can take it. There, it’s yours. Don’t say I never do anything for you.) And I was all “bring it on” and I was tossing my pretty pretty hair this-a-ward and that-a-ward because I was Buffy and my hair was so blonde! So blonde and so pretty!

When I woke up, it was 1 p.m. This pretty much set the tone for the day.

Another thing that happened yesterday is that I went for a physical. I haven’t had a physical since the 80s—I remember the nurse instructing me to remove my shoulder pads and leg warmers before putting on the day-glo gown--so it seemed time. I didn’t realize I was getting the extra-vigilant doctor who would alert me to every possible thing that could ever be wrong with me, so I left there a little freaked. Extra-enthused doctor informed me that I have a GOITER (well, okay, “enlarged thyroid,” but isn’t that a goiter? Isn’t it? Oh, why didn’t I buy the iodized salt?) and HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE (okay, just a high reading, but my reading usually peak at 90/70, usually they’re so low that by all rights I should need to do a handstand to get the blood away from my ankles before I’m conscious enough to sign a check) and also several other things that I can’t mention here. Oh, and apparently because there’s so much cancer in my family, I’m a fool for not seeing a genetic counselor because I’m a ticking time bomb, people! Tick tick! So I’m scheduled to get all kinds of tests and she gave me the name of this counselor with the words “FAMILIAL CANCER SYNDROME” underlined next to it.

I called my mother looking for more specifics on the dead in our family, hoping that perhaps I had overstated the cancer running amok throughout the generations. It was a mistake, because my mom distrusts doctors and their voodoo practices. She truly believes that if you have something wrong with you and you don’t know about it, it will simply vanish. Poof! But if you make the mistake of going to a doctor and getting it treated, you, my friend, are doomed. Not just doomed. Doooomed.

So there I was just trying to get the facts and my mom is on the other end shrieking YOU’RE NOT GETTING CANCER! STOP IT! And then the rest of the conversation went like this (facts have been altered not to protect anyone but because I am simply too lazy to rise from my chair and find my notes):

Me: So how many brothers and sisters did grandma have?

Mom: 8? Wait, let me think. 12. No. No, 8. 6 brothers, 2 sisters. Including her. So she had 7 brothers and sisters.

Me: And did they all die of cancer, or…?

Mom: They were so old! When you’re old it doesn’t count. That’s what my doctor said. It’s not genetic if you’re old. They weren’t 35! They were OLD!

Me: What were their ages?

Mom: So let’s see, there was Mama, she was 74; there was, hmm, Salvatore, Uncle Sally, he was 62…

Me: Cancer?

Mom: Oh, cancer, yeah. Terrible. Colon cancer. Because all he ate was sausage. Seriously, it was all he ate.

Me: [Making a note never to eat sausage again]

Mom: Uncle Maddy, 60s, also colon cancer.

Me: Let me guess--sausage eater?

Mom: [dreamily] Uncle Maddy loved the sausage.

It went on like this for a while. Apparently my family is evenly spit between lovers of sausage and lovers of booze and/or cigarettes—or, hell, all of the above! Italians are fun!

Do you know what else is fun? Talking about dead people! There are so many of them! Think about it--they outnumber us. They could totally rise again and they would so kick our asses. And in reality my slaying power is minimal and my hair is short and brown. We are so screwed.