Hehe, this is probably going to be rambly and long, but my family at Christmas is... interesting. And I needed a Christmas post.

We have a lot of traditions. A lot. And they're all rather wacky. But what takes the cake is my aunt's favorite one.

Dinner is always at her house, and some time long ago some poor misguided soul gave her a set of twelve glasses with the Twelve Days of Christmas on them. Naturally, as they're rather small and meant for children, that means that once dinner is done we use them for milk with dessert.

Just as naturally this means that we are obligated to sing, in a round, the song. There are exactly five people in each family, we sing the partrige in a pear tree and five golden rings together. The rest we get individually (but the whole "On the nth day of Christmas..." bit we sing together as well, so it's only the present that has to be sung alone).

You'd think that this could be a simple thing, not to hard, no one really cares how good they sing because we're all going to be laughing the whole way through it anyway... Well, the last bit about laughing is true at least.

First thing we're in the door, there are a chorus of "I claim 12! I claim 12! Hey! I set the table I got it first!" Then my sister and my cousin decided to hide 11 and 12 so that they could get them right before dinner.

My aunt solves this first roadblock like she does every year. 10 numbers go into a teapot, we each pick out a number. My mom pulled two, which was summarily traded with my aunt because, hey, it's my aunt who makes us sing the dang thing. I, followed by much dancing and cheering on my part and attempted snatching on the parts of others, pulled 12. Since every other time I've ended up with somewhere between 3 and 7, I figure it's about dang time.

Dinner goes on like normal (with the added amusement of teasing my uncle for almost burning the bacon/tenderloin on the part of the non-vegetarians in the house... aka everyone but me) right up until the point that my aunt gets up and drags my uncle away to start to get dessert. Now, until we have milk in the cups, grabbing is fair reign. How we've managed to avoid breaking them I have no idea.

We started out with me having 12 (and you can bet that thing stayed clenched tight in my lap for these five minutes of "trading" time), my uncle (who is up from the table, woe is him) having 11, my sister at 10, John with 9, mom with 8, Callie with 7, my brother with 6, David with 4, and my dad with 3. First my brother stole my uncles, then mass confusion ensued until now my uncle has 3, John 11, mom 9, Callie 6, my brother 8, David 7, and my dad 4 (not because my dad was being mature of course. John switched his 4 for the 11 my dad had bribed my brother for right before milk was poured).

The fact that I can remember all of this should tell you the epic battle that went on. That and I have a semi-photographic memory so stuff like this sticks.

The song had an interesting start, since the cups stayed with their bearers as soon as milk was sipped from them and my uncle was rather unhappy about his demotion from 11 to 3. Then we managed to get through it. Ish. Half of them didn't really sing, and the other half of the time was funny voices. We mostly were dieing of laughter the entire time so it really wasn't the ordeal we make it out to be.

We also had our usual nine to ten vote before it started to do away with it. Overruled, as usual. You'd think we were three with how we act over it, but my sister is the youngest and all the kids step up by two years after her. It's actually kinda weird. We have 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25.... And none of us can act mature over the stupid song.

Or... I could technically say that I did this year, but that was because I had 12. I betcha if I had gotten my cup stolen I'd be singing another tune completely.

~ Tai