Christmas in California

32 of my 33 Christmases have been in California. The one straggler was in Orem, Utah, with my first stepfather's mormon family, and as you can imagine it was horrendous so I won't even start with that story right now. Let's talk about a Cali Christmas.

The sun is usually shining on a Cali Christmas. When I got bikes, remote-control cars, or actually anything as a kid, we went outside and played with it. As an adult now, I start Christmas with a cup of coffee in my shorts on the balcony, reading the paper. The air is dry and clear, and in the winter my mom has the best view of eastern San Diego, with the mountains resting in a purple haze on the horizon, framing the city.

My family is the stereotypical over-the-top liberal California family too, and its never more apparent than when we're all together during the holidays. My sister and I both have a Mexican father. Each of my sister's 3 girls have a black father. And we celebrate at mom and Bob's house. Bob is mom's gay best friend that morphed into family about a decade ago. They own a house together now, even sleep in the same bed (they like to cuddle, how sweet :-). So that's us, just your average Homomexiblack-American family.

We ate our dinner early at 1pm, and thank God the turkey coma hit the kids. For the first time all day, there is quiet in the house. Bob and I are drinking Bloody Mary's (we don't feel guilty about being drunk in the daytime if we have a breakfast drink for some reason), and Bob is talking to my ex-boyfriend on the phone. I am at once relishing being with my family and bored out of my mind, so I guess its not so different from most peoples' Christmas after all.