Treats of the season

There's nothing like meeting new people for Christmas (the family of my mother-in-law's boyfriend, which sounds weird enough as it is) and being treated to an unexpected, graphic, and explicitly racist rant by one member of the family within three minutes of being introduced to said family member. We had been told that this particular woman was a bit of a "wild thing" and had a tendency to blurt out stuff that popped into her head at the spur of the moment, so we were braced for, perhaps, some mild profanity (which wouldn't have disturbed any of us) or at the most some gentle tactlessness. We weren't prepared for an anecdote involving a near-race riot at a gas station, the telling of which left me rather shaken and silent. My mother-in-law had a word with the woman, who had apparently never been this graphic in my MIL's presence until that moment, and the rest of the day went more uneventfully. But I found it hard to cope with it all, especially since as we left, my MIL tried to assure me that the woman really was generally a nice person who just...occasionally said things, and who was now feeling properly abashed about her outburst. It was nice of her to try and smooth things over (she is, and always has been, overwhelmingly non-confrontational) but it all seemed to rather miss the point. Really, a lot of the holiday celebrations this year have involved big uncomfortable moments, although none of them were allowed to completely ruin the party.

Anyway, I'm fighting big-time sinuses and wondering if those tablets you put in the shower that turn it into a big humidifier work at all. Anybody tried them?

Oh, and a few story recs from the crop of yuletide stories (eccentricartist, these are all fine for your tastes, I think):

Whither Thou Goest. Harriet and Peter in a very sweet little Christmas story. It's not the pristine gem of Ring Out, Wild Bells, To the Wild Sky, but it's quite nice.

And Indeed There Will Be Time. Narnia, after The Last Battle.

Travel Documents. Set after the conclusion of I Capture The Castle, the importance of which to me may be noted in the name of this very LJ. A nice take on "what happens afterwards."

And, to wrap it up, two fun Vicky Bliss stories: The Tightrope and Marginalia