Even in the best of times Christmas is stressful - And with all the violence over the last few weeks and the uncertainty of the fiscal cliff and what it means for our finances and retirements, it's that much harder to keep a positive attitude. Personally, I've crammed buying a house (in 20 days, frantic), closing on the 19th, work, 2 1/2 days with my parents with a 5 1/2 hour drive there in a mini-blizzard and 3 1/2 hour drive back, and packing for the move all in so far this month. I work today but we're leaving either tonight or tomorrow morning for my in-laws (2 1/2 hour drive in ideal conditions), driving up to her uncles on friday which is another 3 1/2 hours away, then all the way back either sunday morning (with a stopover for the game at the in-laws) or all at once saturday night. Then I get to come back and move the next day (31st) and host my brother for 2 days.
Christmas is hard, and draining, and stressful. I'm blessed to have parents that have not divorced and in-laws that have not divorced, I can't imagine cramming another two Christmases in and keeping my sanity. But many people need to deal with that. I don't know that much about Kevin's personal life but I can think of a handful of reasons to be stressed out this time of year - we can give halfhearted non-apologies about offending him but the fact of the matter is, we can be dicks to eachother quite often and we're all just one or two crises away from not being able to take it in stride. Lord knows I'm guilty, at the very least I hope we can leave our more heated rage and language for the sorry souls to the homeland's east and west.
Merry Christmas and stuff.