And Finally: Welcome to the family Part 2

Good afternoon!

Now is the final installment of my Christmas stories for you to enjoy.  (Barring, of course, any new sort of fresh fun and freakishness that may happen in the next week.)  I want you to enjoy this long awaited story, a story that was my very first "Holiday Horror Story" sent in to Bob and Brian Radio Show years ago, and it holds up today.  So grab a soda, or an adult beverage, sit back, and enjoy:

The Christmas we got engaged, Hubby lived in the Milwaukee area, while I was living in the Detroit area.  Since I was a teacher, I had 8 days off for Christmas break, and I was going to make the most of it.  My flight left Detroit at 10 PM Christmas Eve and landed in Milwaukee at 10 PM Milwaukee time.  (Time zones are as close as we're going to get to time travel, I'm certain.)

Hubby, the as yet unengaged hubby, picked me up at the airport in Milwaukee, and drove me to Manitowoc, two hours north. 

This is where you have to start paying attention, otherwise, this story isn't going to be funny at all.

So we got to Manitowoc around midnight.  Hubby proposed, in the snow, in a gigantic weeping willow tree overlooking both a school playground, and Lake Michigan.  (everybody saw  AWWWWWWWWWWWW)

We celebrated Christmas with my parents that night because, the next day, Christmas day, we were going to drive down to Jefferson, WI, (2.5 hours south of Manitowoc) for Christmas with my grandparents.

Which we did.

We stayed overnight in Jefferson, then drove 3.5 hours NORTH to Marshfield, WI, where we stayed at my uncle's home.  (The no flush house) We celebrated Christmas with my mother's family, and slept in the church basement.  (NOT having sex, of course!)  The next day, we hopped back into Hubby's car...did I mention it was a JEEP WRANGLER....complete with bone jarring shocks and iffy heat.  We drove almost 4 hours southwest to the Twin Cities for...wait for it...Christmas with the MOTHER IN LAW. 

Let me back up:  The Mother in Law...or MIL for short, and I knew each other.  After 4 years of dating, we'd seen each other a number of times and we had a very....polite...relationship. One of the first things she ever said to me was, "I never questioned any decision Hubby ever made."  And I've always sort of added, "until now."

Anyway, it wasn't that we didn't get along.  We were just very careful around each other.  I think neither of us ever figured the relationship would last, so why rock the boat about it?

So we pulled in to her place pretty late in the afternoon two days after Christmas.  We were excited to tell her our big news, and I was really excited for the layer of manners to be stripped away and the two of us having a real relationship.

Be careful what you wish for, my friends!

We got to the front door and MIL's fiance, let's call him Edgar, met us with a stressed look on his face.  "You are in trouble," he says to Hubby.

So much for excited to share our big news.

"What happened?"

"No one called her on Christmas."  Edgar spoke in whispers and looked over his shoulder.  "Your sisters didn't call her, no one from her family called her.  Not all day."

Okay, that seems bad, but did you SEE the amount of driving we did?  Oh, and this was 21 years ago...long before cell phones were available to 8 year old girls who like Justin Bieber.  So in order to call the MIL at some point on Christmas Day, Hubby would have had to place a Long Distance Call from someone's phone or...

he could use a payphone!

The ultimate pay as you go phone. If you put 10 coins in the little slot, you'll get to talk for five minutes

yeah, even in 1989, finding a payphone on the two lane highway between Marshfield, WI and the Twin Cities was a long shot.

So now the three of us stood there, in the kitchen, watching the door, waiting for it to open,  like three mice waiting for the cat to charge in.   And then, in she came.

"Merry Christmas!"  All three of us shout, hoping that the noise will wipe the away the cloudy look from her face. "We got engaged!, Sorry we didn't call!  Merry Christmas!"

Hugs all around...everything is going really well...until...

She leans in to hug me and she whispers these words into my ear:

"That's not the way to start out being in the family."


I'll let that sink in for a moment.  You can imagine the shiver that went down my spine and the sick, twisted feeling in my stomach, a feeling I managed to have every time we visited MIL for the first ten years of our marriage.


Hubby and I celebrated our 20th anniversary this year.  I'm very happy to say that MIL and I now get along very well, and I absolutely love  all of my in laws. 

So there you have it, my friends, my best Christmas stories.  Hopefully I've given you a few moments of laughter and a little enjoyment.  As for you, and yours, I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and safe New Year! 

See you all in 2011!