The hopes and fears of all the years

Our first Christmas together, Eamon and I were in California alone. My parents were somewhere and so he and I were house sitting for them. It was glorious, we only had to be with each other and provide a simple, albeit expensive, as we both had recently gotten good paying jobs, gift.
This was the first and last time we didn't have to really be Christmas-e. The next 20 years have been spent here with his family. There are the nieces and nephews, most of who won't even talk to us, but mosey on up for the endless birthdays and holiday celebrations ready for their bailouts.
There is me, being meek and trying not to say anything too liberal that might actually mean sharing an opinion.
And, there is Eamon who will pick at his mother until she ends up doing exactly what he was hoping for, which is to spill her most right wing, fundamentalist ill informed thoughts and then he's off.
Perhaps he's waiting for her to change her feelings about abortion, the war and let's say; the Jew in the house. I'm just suggesting, that maybe after two decades of the same, there is going to be no epiphany regarding another approach to living.
Merry Christmas baby, and happy Chanukah to those of us who are counting down.