I almost neared frusteration, though, when I stuck my head in my sister's room to find muffin crumbs all over, and when I say all over I mean all over. The remnants of Angel's snack.

"Whoa," I said. Then Dud turned around and saw too. She'd walked in right before me; we had left Angel in his father's care. "That's a lot of crumbs," I mentioned.

"And I can't believe you just lay there and watched him do that!" she shot at Alexis with a glare. He shrugged nonchalantly from the bed. "Hell, you guys just watch him do a lot more things when he's right in front of you." he replied. Which, since he's kinda already on my bad side, instantly got my blood boiling. He's always been irresponsible when it comes to his son's hygene, but that he accuse me of the same?! Bitch, please!

"I do not let him run around without watching what he's doing," I snarled at him. "If anything, I'm the one always telling you guys about watching him more closely. And," I added nastily, "that's not even my responsibility."

The Dud looked uncomfortable, and I knew things were gonna build up if I didn't shut up soon, so I just ground my teeth and walked out to help 'Ama with what I could. She offered a comforting hug, and that made me feel much better. I mean, I'd hate to be the one to continue the ongoing family tradition of fighting during holidays. It bumms me out, so I'd rather swallow it all to keep the folks happy. It's especially important to me now.

But I got all choked up after that, while helping 'Ama around the kitchen, as we both reminiced about her Christmas cookie baking she used to do when we were kids. She has two brothers, both of which love her cookies (and who wouldn't?). Tio Kayo likes the green-and-red pinwheels and Tio Teco likes los polvorones, or pan de polvo, que hace 'Ama. Since I work at UPS now, I offered mom to pay for the shipping this Christmas, so we can send them some batches over to Mexico for Christmas. Then we started talking about Tia Lili, my aunt who died of cancer when I was in fourth grade, and how she'd always complain about my uncles and their cookie fetish. "Can you imagine how they'll all be up there," I told her in spanish, "when 'Apa dies and sees them all again?" 'Ama laughed. "Se van a andar contando chistes de Polo-Polo alla arriba," she agreed. We laughed again, but my throat got all choke-y and my eyes threatened to well up. Of course she noticed and pretended not to. Instead, she gave me the honorous task of buttering the turkey. I prepared the butter as ususal with garlic and strawberry wine and got to work. As I buttered up that bitch, I remembered Daniel, my younger cousin and best friend on my mom's side of the family, and how he used to scare the shit outta me with the dead chicken feet my grandmother used to put in the caldo de pollo when we were four. He would pull on some tendon or another that would make the talons clench and unclench, and then he would say, in his spookiest four-year-old Dracula voice: "Mira Gis... �esta vivo! �Vivo!"

*laugh* God, I would squeal like a pussy.