Ughhh.

Yesterday was quietly epic. If that's not an oxymoron. 

Just Shawndra and her sister, three dogs, three cats, and me, three games (two on boards and one digital), a YouTube fire burning in the television, Bing Crosby crooning Christmas songs via some BlueTeeth, two bottles of wine, plenty of Bailey's Irish Cream, a perfect surfeit  of rum for the bread pudding, and approximately 612,432,957 calories.

This will not be one of my longer posts, because, quite frankly, even at 2:34 in the afternoon on this dismal and damp Boxing Day, I am still not yet fully recovered from the sheer gluttony I experienced yesterday. As a middle-aged American consumer (of so very many things, in so very many ways, over so very many holidays), you would think that I would be proudly star-spangled-bannered up to the challenge of handling all the overindulgence that anyone, anywhere, could dish out.

I am here to tell you, boys and girls, that this is no longer true.

Either (1) I am losing my touch, (2) this nation's historical talent for consumption has reached new heights or, (3) unlike Doctor Who, I am no longer bigger on the inside. (If you don't get that reference, ask the next person you see wearing a t-shirt sporting a joke about math, or Star Trek or chemistry. They'll be able to explain it.)

I do want to assure you that yesterday was - for all its serene voracity and spilled wine - a genuine, first-class, hoot of a good time. A good time was had by all, furry four-legged family members not excepted.

There was candy and cookies and bread pudding (which is, most assuredly, NOT a pudding, notwithstanding the opinion of our friends across the pond), and turkey and fixin's and pie (two kinds) and who can remember what-all. There were packages and wrapping and ribbons and bows. There were phone calls through the day connecting us with the rest of our scattered family. There were candles and amazing smells wafting out of the kitchen.

Windows fogged. People sang (don't ask). Dogs barked. Cats stood on back legs to beg for a taste of roast poultry. 

There was laughter and - dare I say it - Joy.

And yes, I overindulged in all of these things, including, I am not ashamed to say, standing on my back legs to beg for cookies.

In the end, while I might feel a bit (oxy)moronic for turning myself into a temporary invalid through my inability to control myself, I am not sorry for a moment of the day.

With that, I'll finish my (heartfelt) blathering, in hope that you, too, might share the simple joy that I felt yesterday, wrapped up in the warmth of family.

Even if, like me, we all ate too damn much.

[images: Steven L Parker]