This post was written on Christmas Eve from London's Heathrow airport.

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m hitching a ride on Santa’s sleigh to the USA to see my friends and family for the first time in 4 months.

That’s the key bit of info for this story. I’ve been away for 4 months.

Last week my mother sent me this email:

My mother has long harbored a suspicion that my brother, mindlessly, throws her silverware in the trash. If a spoon goes missing, her first assumption is not “maybe it fell beneath the rack in the dishwasher,” but rather “my 27 year old son dumped it in the trash with the remnants of his mashed potatoes.”

Admission of guilt: I perpetuate this suspicion. At holidays, when the house is full of guests grazing from dawn to dessert, I play a game. Throughout the day, I steal forks, one at a time, from the drawer. I hide them in my room. A lack of forks quickly brings a holiday to a screamy loggerhead. By the time my mother (who *thinks* she likes to cook) has reached critical mass and is chucking every pot she owns at the sink, there are — for *some* reason — no forks left anywhere. And my brother, snoozing on the sofa, is accused.

So when my mother sent me the email last week re the missing Tupperware, I wrote back:

To which she replied:

Followed by:

Then:

At which point I responded:

And then I messaged my brother to give him a heads-up that he was probably still under investigation. "I told her I was joking, but that didn't help. Now she just thinks I'm your accomplice."

We have a good relationship in spite his life of crime. He followed up two days ago:

But so I don’t end by bitching about my mom on Christmas Eve, here’s a nice thing she did. In another email (we don’t Skype or call; we email, like professionals), she asked if I wanted/needed anything while visiting for Xmas. I responded, BAGELS!

In London, there is dough. Sometimes the dough is round and sometimes it’s called “bagel,” but it is not a bagel. It is a crescent of lies, like the so-called Circle Line on the tube. (Rant about that to follow.)

Bagels in London are abominations. Evidence:
1. In London, bagels are not breakfast food but late night, too-drunk-to-taste, drunk food. Think bland, spherical Dominos with no cheese, sauce, or garlic.
2. They taste like shoe. Expensive, sensible shoe. Like a Brooks Brothers all leather business loafer in chestnut.
3. Londoners try to disguise the shoe taste by throwing weird stuff on the bagels. The most popular: salted beef and mustard. I asked for “just cream cheese” and the lady was like “gross.”
4. Bagels are often spelled “beigels.” Gross.

Yeah, so my mom is weird about forks and lost Tupperware, but in 9 hours, I’ll step off a plane and she’ll greet me with real bagels. So, hey, family and Christmas or whatever.

Merry Christmas,
Renée, A (merry) Broad Abroad

I can't see your Tupperware from Europe.