i'll go over to my parents' (they live 6 hours from here, on the state border). it's usually funny... with children and young people and some very nice old people... it's not formal at all, the kind of friendly party where people group by age/interest to "eat drink and be merry" and hug eachother a lot, and you have a long table with children playing with their microscopes while they eat on one end, adults catching up on their lives in the middle and all the youth on the other end, with a laptop on the table. (last year, in between dishes, we took the family teens (17+) on a ride through sex-ed websites, and discused with them std rates and safe sex and sexual orientation tolerance... it felt so natural, and we all asked losts of questions and looked them up, and i guess it was great to use the very little time we have around eachother to try to give them info to keep themselves healthy. it was like out christmass gift to them).

so, in a way, i'm excited about going. even though loud noises like fireworks trigger me.
on the other hand, it's the family's first christmas without grandma. she died recently, and she was like the head of the clan, so i'm hoping it doesn't end up with everybody crying drunk and looking at old photos of her. that makes me kinda anxious.