Panel 1: We begin things with Elly glaring at Michael because he stupidly tries to try out the new skis he got for Christmas in the living room; he tries to deflect her irritation by whining "Come on, Ma! I was just tryin' them out!" as if that is ever going to work. Elly's knee-jerk habit of pointing both at him for doing something that inconveniences her (which, of course, means that he yearns to see her writhing in agony so he can laugh at her wretched suffering) and to where she wants him to go (his room so he can do chores in a manner that she won't allow to please her) tells me that it won't.
Panel 2: She starts off making sense by saying that she doesn't care because skis don't belong in the living room. She stops making sense when she tells him to practice in his room instead of outside where he kind of should.
Panel 3: This does not make sense to him because there's no space in his room and asks what he's supposed to do in there.
Panel 4: She points at the crap all over the floor and makes a surly comment about practising on the moguls. Oh, funny, Elly: tell the boy to ski over the heaps of laundry you do anyway.
Summary: It doesn't take long for what little holiday spirit the Pattersons have to dissipate, does it? After the turkey is being made into endless leftovers, we go right back to Elly screaming in his face about how he's a monster no one can love because his room looks as if someone lives in it only to turn around and whine to Connie that for some reason that escapes her, her son acts as if she's a hostile and peevish idiot who only had kids so she could have people to punish.