Ahh, the holiday season is upon us. In two days I will go to my parents house for X-Mas, eat a huge meal, open presents and be driven to the limit of my sanity by some holiday traditions that suck.
These aren’t your average families traditions. These are traditions unique to my family that I wish would go away. Here is the list:
#1. My Mom and my sister Steph will start an arguement about a subject that niether of them know anything about. In fact, tradition holds that the subject of the arguement doesn’t matter. They will not raise their voices or yell at each other. They will just argue behind fake smiles until the rest of the family gets so uncomfrotable that we decide to see what is on TV or check out my Dads latest gizmo which happens to be in a different room. This traditions goes back for years and happens at all family gatherings.
#2. When dessert is offered and I refuse my Mom will once again bring out the joke. The joke is that since I do not like sweets I there must have been a mix up at the hospital when I was a baby since everyone in the family loves sweets. Or that I must have been adopted because I do not like sweets. It varies from holiday to holiday. This has been a running joke for at least 10 years. My Mom loves it. Everyone else is sick of it. This tradition also happens at all family gatherings.
#3. My Dad will corner each of us kids and go on about the stock market in detail, our career choice and what the next step we take should be. I appreciate his input but NOT AT CHRISTMAS. This traditions only happens during Christmas. I think it is because my Mom spends alot for this holiday.
#4. My Mom and my sister Steph will get into another arguement hidden by fake smiles about how to season or cook some part of the meal. Once again the rest of the faimly will find something interesting to look at in another room. This happens at every holiday where my Mom cooks.
#5. My Dad and my brother Mike will escalate their gift war. Mike and Dad are really well off and try to one up each other at Christmas time. Us poorer kids hate this tradition. There is nothing like giving your Dad a $30 book after Mike gave him a $500 remote controlled airplane. I know, it’s the thought that counts. Obviously whom ever came up with that saying was rich.
So, what are your family traditions that you wish would go away?
Things that suck? All the frightening variations of fruitcake – espcially the ones with the weird red and green candied things in them. < insert pukey smiley >
But, since we’ve decided to Grinchize Christamas, limiting our gift exchange to one meaningful gift for our nearest and dearest and then instead spending our cash on a few nights at luxury hotel – in a cozy, little, artistic community town, with a fireplace in our room and breakfast included – well, heck! it’s gonna be downright enjoyable!
How about pretending to like my sister-in-law when I really hate her guts and wish she would hurry up and divorce my brother and get out of our lives once and for all.
The fact that the bulk of Xmas day must be spent at my MIL’s house. I so enjoy seeing the little one get all kinds of neat new toys to play with, then have to leave most of them home, while we all sit around and eat and watch the damn television that never ever gets shut off day or night all year long and…
'Scuse me. Didn’t mean to get that all over everyone’s screens like that.
It’s not really all that bad. I’m just projecting 'cause I went through this every year, as a kid. If we could’ve at least stayed home until, oh noontime, I wouldn’t have minded so much.
[sub]Yeah, I wanna go see the rest of the family, but I just got 4 new Atari 2600 cartridges… can’t I at least play with one of them for half an hour before we go?[/sub]
After the service but before we finally get to eat my step-mother will announce that she wants to speak. She will put on her reading glasses and pull out several sheets of paper. She will start to read a poem or a short article that she found in the last week that has meaning to her. After four or five sentences she will get emotional and start to choke up. My step-sisters will then start to giggle at her. Step-mom will get angry, stop reading and fold the papers back up and stomp off to start serving the dinner. In all of these years, she has never finshed her reading.
The latest tradition for my inlaws is to send everyone into hypoglycemia. My inlaws used to have some appetizers (chips, olives, etc.) at their house for people to snack on while they waited for Christmas dinner to be cooked. People started bringing some to contribute, and for some reason my father-in-law got mad about how many appetizers there were. Instead of merely insisting that no one bring any, he’s apparently turned this year to also not providing any snacks either. So my husband and I, traveling back that morning from my relatives’ house, had no breakfast. Since my father-in-law said he expected us there at 11:30, we had no lunch. We arrive to find the turkey in the oven but with hours to go yet, and nothing at all to eat - but plenty of alcoholic drinks. (This was quite a nice contributing factor for the family fights, as well.) We ate after 3 pm - and here he wondered why people sneaked into the dining room ahead of time to demolish the relish trays that he was saving for an appetizer at the very start of dinner.
– My mom – for the fifteenth year in a row – prepared and hosted dinner for fifteen with help only from the immediate family. My four aunts and uncles from out of town, along with their three teenaged offspring, contributed a grand total of one bottle of wine and no labor. One aunt and uncle offered to take my parents out to dinner, their treat, and then changed their minds after the bill arrived and asked my dad to pay half. (These people are not badly off; even if they were, they could have chosen a much less expensive restaurant and nobody would have complained.) Mom, as usual, is stressed, resentful, and unwilling to complain openly.
– My seventeen-year-old cousin is still incapable of normal adult discourse and shows signs of turning into a junior-grade Hitler. The one conversation I attempted to have with him concluded with a long monologue, delivered at the top of his voice in a public place, about why all Christian fundamentalists need to be killed for the good of society. (Kid’s gonna have an interesting time in college – especially if he decides to come down south. Heh.)