Thankfully, their are no "Donald Duck's" at my parents place this Christmas.

It's not the end of the world if things aren't just perfect all the time...

  My father was Irish... and a damned good cook. During the depression (the last one) he took home-ec in high school 'cause he and all the girls got to eat what they cooked. My mother - who was of Dutch and Norwegian extraction - also beat the odds and made great Hungarian ragus and southern Italian pasta sauces from scratch.

They collaborated on traditional American Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter feasts and turned out gourmet versions thereof.

 Neither of them had fiery tempers, but I did.

using the holidays to justify your bad temper is just crap. what about the rest of the year?

My experience was pretty similar to irishgit's, as the paternal side of my family was completely Irish, and although I love my father, we used to call him The Ogre on holidays for  good reasons. In the sense of arguing over nothing, it was much like irishgit said. However, my mother is not Irish, and we all fell on the ground and thanked God- (with rolling around but sans serpents) for that when it came time to have food cooked.

Every year I forget how intense the holidays are..I'm quicky reminded during the dinner and I always think this will be the last year ALL of us should get together simply because it's a three ring circus with all of us...but I soon forget and to the same thing year after year.

Come on now.  We all fall victim to this at some point during the holidays.  Their are just too many damn people out there, and in my way!!!

In an Irish-Catholic family, short tempers are pretty much the norm. We don't need a lot of excuse to be at each others throats.

Pretty much anything will do, like a sunrise.

Nothing better then sitting in Walmart on Christmas Eve, eating a bag of popcorn, while watching two old ladies beating the crap out of each other for the last smelly-soap basket in the sales bin....I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Christmas Eve 1996 I was at the mall (like a fool) when I saw two women- one in a minivan, one in an SUV- try to get the same parking place. Before the parking lot traffic jam moved, they were out of their vehicles beating the snot out of each other. I sat in the car, the voice of Bing Crosby coming through the speakers, laughing until I cried. The security guard was as big as most NFL linemen, and could barely get them apart. So much for "joy to the world".