It's that feeling I get when, after we've come home for Christmas - only to spend a few, precious hours with the family - and there's a dog along with us (a friend, who is in Thailand, who has been gone for a month and we thought we could help by keeping his dog this one, last week, which is more trouble than we thought) and that dog is a very good dog, generally speaking, but when he is around the other dogs, on their property and in their house (especially the oldest dog of the house), there is so much tension and there is snapping, growling, a fight; we must separate the dogs, put them in bedrooms alternatively, behind closed doors and listen to them whine out loud, cry for us to come and get them and we know, we know that we must ignore them because if we let them out they could hurt each other, and for this reason we sit at the dinner table and eat our bisque and french baquettes, we eat our roasted vegetables and rave over the perfect pork tenderloin, and we listen to dogs cry and we talk a little louder, look each other in the eyes a little longer, make a few more jokes, to try and forget that the dogs in our house want to kill each other; we sit at the table, we eat, we talk, we clear the table and wash the dishes, drink more wine, a beer, my younger brother sneaks some (unbeknownst to Dad) and we gather together around the marble island in the kitchen because we always find ourselves there, and we talk together even though the tensions are raised because of those crying dogs - you see, we just should not have these four dogs all under one roof, but it is too late to do anything about it, so we must make the best of this situation - and so eventually we sit down to open presents and we let one dog out and then after we open a few more presents we put that dog away and we let the other one out - just to catch his breath, you see - and the whole time Dad does not look happy, and we're telling the dog to sit and lay down while Marcus is opening a present and we can hardly hear his reaction because of the whining behind the bedroom door, but we listen closely and cheer louder than we need to when he gets a present he loves, and then we turn to the next person and the next, on down the row, and we have large smiles on our faces and we continue to open the gifts and finally, we are finished with the presents and Matthew jumps up to take one of the dogs outside because we know that we need to do right by the dog, he must have a little bit of air, etc. and so there he goes, to take him out, and meanwhile, because we are only home for a few hours and we must leave early in the morning, Mom and I decide that Santa must come tonight (Santa is more flexible now) and so Mom prepares the gifts from Santa and I run outside to get Matthew, excited, thinking this will be a nice relief from the dog troubles, and when I open the door to go out, our little dog runs out and he begins to go crazy (he is a bad dog, he does not listen to us like he should), and a car races down the dark street and Smokey runs like the wind and all Matthew and I can do is stare and hope and pray that the car does not hit Smokey, and we are so mad at him, at one another, at everything, and we are defeated from the night, from these dastardly dogs, and we just want to go to sleep and Smokey, Smokey! Come here! He does not listen, you see! He finally comes and we usher him into the house and we put him in timeout, worn and upset and Matthew needs to go to bed, but Santa has come and I can see it in his face that he cannot take anymore of it, and so I say, "That's ok, nevermind," and he leaves to go upstairs and my face turns red and I begin to cry in front of Mom and Dad and I apologize long enough to say, "I am so sorry, it's just a few hours, I wanted it to be perfect" and first Mom hugs me and then Dad, and then comes that feeling I get when, after I control my tears Mom watches me for a moment and then she says after all of these things, these details, this stress and the madness, she says quietly, "Would you like to open your present anyway?"