And it went swimmingly.

I won't bore you with the details of my Christmas, except to say this:

--On the 4 hour trip to my in-laws with my mother in the car, we chatted happily the whole way down.
--The entire day of the 25th, my mother-in-law's house was packed with happily shouting kids, and a slew of very different people.
--We seated 13 for Christmas Dinner.
--Palestinian Muslim, 3-days-a-week churchgoing Baptist, backsliders, pagans, agnostics, athiests, conservatives, liberals, militant tee-totalers and two-fisted drinkers and others happily broke bread together, chatting all the while.
--Most of the throng was there for 2 days.
--Driving my mom back up, we enjoyed our talk the whole way back.

Not one cross word among adults. No tension.

Oh, and I found out that my brother in-law bakes a fanTAStic buttermilk pie.

Call it a win all around.