Merry Cactus.

How could you not like Christmas dude?
It's a month long excuse to do crafts galore, give people fair trade gifts and Heifer project animals, see little kidz everywhere get so so so cited, and don't even get me started on the lights........oh....my....god....the lights.
I have already made cards, decorated my tree, made some wreaths, made a nice little display out of a bunch of old cans I was too lazy to recycle, and decorated one of my balconies with Xmas lights.  I created a lovely cactus scene with my greenies, and with the red and white wrote "Merry Cactus."

My dad made it through just enough Busch Lights to decorate a big tree that Levi always runs his head into that's in front of our house.
Dad was balancing on a ladder, that was balancing in the bed of his pick-up truck, while balancing a beer in one hand, and decorating the tree with the other.
It was probably better than watching the actual filming of "Christmas Vacation."
I know everyone says their dad is totally Clark W. Griswold, but seriously, do you know my dad?
Anyway.
Later, I put him to bed.
Before that, he tried to pee on me.
At 4am, he woke me up and wanted to have a pow wow.
I told him to fuck off, I was asleep and had a lot to do today.
He doesn't remember any of it.
But I won't let him forget about the pee thing. Ever probably.
That's even worse than the time he got wasted last year and peed in the women's restroom at the Russellville Wal-Mart. Hehehe.

At work, the older ladies talk to me about adult things. Like about gardening and dishes and holiday decor. I know they're staring at a girl in her twenties, who has actually lived on her own and made her own money and is capable of partaking in adult convos, but I still feel like I'm a nervous 14 year old who is waiting to be told what book to read for class, and worried about if the dude who likes me will hold hands with me at the movies Friday night, and what do I do when my hand starts sweating lots?!
And when these women are talking to me about fancy things that adult women talk about, I just want to say something that the real Leah would actually say, like "hey, the funniest thing happened the other day here at this very church. I totally shit my pants for the first time in my life!" Or like "I miss my pet rat, Guzzle. He used to run around like a dog. And I miss my baby goat, Animal, he used to lay on my mini van like a kitty."
But then I'd immediately have to be like "Pardon my weirdness, I have an alcoholic father who is a published author, and a mother who is the sweetest ever but loves math too much and drives an honest-to-god school bus, and a grandmother who is a compulsive liar and takes out her teeth to scare me, and a grandpa who raised me and was badass but just....you know...died...wah wah, and a baby cousin who is real cute but probably retarded, and another who is real funny and smart and has a lisp but never slows down, and another who happens to be interested in art but also thinks she is Miley motha fuckin Cyrus rock star queen goddess (annoying), and another who flies airplanes but can barely drive a vehicle, and an uncle who smokes lotsa weed and is super distant from the fam, and an aunt who is a pill-head ex coke addict bipolar bulimic crazy person, and an uncle who is almost deaf, to the point where he just screams everything he wants to merely say, which usually has to do with killin' a deer or how that global warming is a big crockashit, and another cousin who is quite possibly a psychopath and has killed puppies out of curiosity, and yet another who is in kindergarten and is pretty sure the word "r-e-d" has a  "6 in there somewhere."
And then I'd probably have to take a few breaths and a big ole slug of water and continue with "did I mention, those are only the ones who LIVE with me? Don't even get me started on my evil grandpa who just found Jesus or my insane grandmother who loves her poodles more than my dad and me, or about my meth-head leather-skinned stripper aunt who is almost 50........"
And then I'd stop. Although I could go on. Forever.

Sometimes I tell stories about a weird family member and their problems. And the person I'm telling will respond with something like "well, every family has one."
And I laugh and wish for just one. I'd settle for maybe just 10 crazies.
But maybe I'm the craziest of them all.
Cause I love the shit out of each and every one of 'em. Seriously.