I thought that I was a cheapskate dad.  But compared with the family staying with us for Christmas, I look like Mr. Moneybags.

• I kept finding paper towels all over the kitchen counters and, being a neat freak, I kept throwing them away. Then my mother-in-law yelled at me for throwing away the paper towels she wasn’t done with. This explains why I found a pile of used paper towels on top of her dryer during our last visit. Apparently, if a paper towel is only used to wipe up water she will lay it out to dry and then reuse it later. I showed her that I have a vast supply of paper towels thanks to Costco, but she was undeterred. There’s already another pile of drying paper towels growing on my kitchen counter.
• I had to go pick up a family member early this morning, so I decided to stop by McDonald’s on the way back and grabbed a bunch of items from their $1 breakfast menu. I thought I was being frugal by ordering the cheap items, but I was put to shame within an hour of arriving at home. My mother-in-law decided to wash the plastic spoons that came with the McDonald’s fruit & yogurt parfaits in case we wanted to use them again later. I showed her our lovely drawer of silverware, but I might have had an easier time getting her to part with her pet cat then getting her to drop the plastic utensils in the trash. I suspect that she later removed the plastic spoons from the garbage when I wasn’t looking. It wouldn’t surprise me.
• I noticed that whenever my in-laws visit, they always use bottles of shampoo taken from hotels.
• The family no longer tries to save the wrapping paper on the presents. But boxes and bows are still fair game. I think the same bow has appeared on my Christmas gifts three years in a row.
• If Santa leaves candy in your stocking, check the expiration date. You never know when he may have bought the supply of stocking stuffers – but you can assume they were bought on sale or with a coupon.
• I learned that any kind of food item can be frozen. I may disagree with the family about how edible the items are when thawed, but if you looked into the freezers at my in-law’s house (they have a second in the garage just to store more random items), you’d find a plethora of frozen food from various decades. If there is a nuclear winter, you could live for years as long as you don’t mind the taste of frostbite.