Yes, it’s time for the holiday season, which means … family arguments. Not even about important stuff–just crap you argue about for the sake of pushing each others’ buttons. Any family gathering I’ve been to has included at least one really good, totally inconsequential fight. It’s gotten to the point where we’re simply rehashing arguments we’ve been having for years.
(And as an aside, I’m talking about the totally inane brouhahas, here. Not legitimate and/or painful grievances–'cause this is supposed to be funny.)
In my family, every holiday season includes at least one yelling match about … who the shortest woman in the family is. Dumbest argument you’ve ever heard of, right? Yet nevertheless, more than once I have found myself standing barefoot, back-to-back with my Aunt Karen, who insists she has to be at least an inch taller than me. It’s more like a quarter of an inch, but it makes me the shortest (including the 13-year-old, who is already half a foot above me). Grandma, of course, doesn’t count, because she’s shrinking.
And then there’s the one about where the food line starts. Thanksgiving in my family is buffet-style–all the food is laid out on the sideboard, and everybody lines up with their paper plates. We’ve usually got at least forty people there, and often the first guy in line is finished eating by the time the last gets their food–which is good, as we don’t have seating for everyone at once. My Uncle Ken insists that the line always begins with him, and is usually in position at least half an hour before the food is ready. Many of my cousins don’t understand the concept of “cutters will be ejected from the park,” and as current Chairperson of the Grandchild Coalition (because my older brother now has a child of his own and is therefore excommunicated), I find myself having to explain to these upstarts that Grandpa will beat their asses if they’re caught. Which he won’t, of course, because he can’t even hear us yelling at each other–and wouldn’t really care, if he could. But it’s still an effective threat.
I won’t even start on the rationing of twice-baked potatoes. My second cousin almost took a plastic fork to the hand last year for trying to sneak an extra one onto his plate when no one was looking.
I did a vanity search the other day for something and I found an old Xmas Fight thread from like 2002 that I …uh…mentally spewed in. It was brutal to read it. I won’t torture anyone by finding it, c&p’ing it. I am not that mean.
We don’t have big fights for the sake of fighting. Never have. There’s not much family left on Daddy’s side, and a lot of Mom’s family lives out of state. Our time together is too precious to waste it yelling at each other when we could be laughing. I guess maybe some families think yelling at each other is a fun bonding thing, but I don’t get it. We typically don’t yell at each other even when we fight. (And since we’re all right about everything all the time, fights are inevitable.)
Of course, Dr.J and I will have our ritual squabble about when to put the tree up. He’ll talk about how Christmas starts too early, and trees should go up no earlier than December 10. I’ll tell him if he wants to be all Grinchy about it, I can put the tree in my den where he doesn’t have to look at it, he’ll mutter under his breath about how he’s not a Grinch, and then I’ll put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving. In the living room.
My wife and I fight every X-mas over the amount of decorations in and outside of our house. She would load the place up with all sorts of crap: nativity scenes, wreaths, lights, angels, etc, etc. I, on the other hand, would love to set out one wreath on our door with a ribbon across the front reading “Bah, Humbug!”.
She always wins, but not before we piss each other off!
We don’t really have fights, although I do expect that this Thanksgiving might be a bit tense since I just told my mom that I love her, but I want to spend my birthday next year alone with my husband (she was here for more than a week this year, and although I know I am a cruel daughter for saying so, I find it difficult to have to entertain someone for more than a week, especially when they only live three hours away and I’ll see them in two more for Thanksgiving. I also mentioned that since I’m trying to lose weight, I would prefer if we toned down the junk food a bit this year. I said so nicely, but she got mad anyway. Ah, the holidays!).
Thus far, our family interchange goes something like this:
Me: Mom, I’m not hungry.
Mom: Don’t you like it?
Me: I love it - it tastes fabulous.
Mom: Then why don’t you eat more?
Me: I’m really, really full.
Mom: I get it. You don’t like my cooking. It’s cooked wrong, and now I’ll have to throw the whole thing out. throws down fork
Me: Rolls eyes, decides to take one for family peace Fine, but just a little bit. cringing - I know what’s coming
Mom: You shouldn’t eat like that - you’ll get fat. You’re already a big girl, you know. Think about how huge you’ll be when you have a baby!
Or
Mom: Use cream instead of whole milk in that recipe.
Me: But it says to use whole milk.
Mom: I don’t care. I want cream.
Me: But I’m trying to lose some weight, and I would prefer to use just milk. Whole cream is really bad for you.
Mom: Fine, but it’s going to taste horrible.
Me: Okay - I’ll compromise. I’ll use a little half and half, and a little whole. How’s that?
Mom: I’ll still notice the difference. Why do you have to make everything so damn healthy?
Me: Rolls eyes As soon as mom turns her back, I use 2% instead of whole milk, then say I used a half-and-half.
Mom: Oh, these potatoes are wonderful! I can taste the difference. I’m so glad you decided to make them my way.
Unfortunately, most of our fights center around food and my mom tends to be pretty passive-aggressive, which makes me somewhat passive-aggressive right back. I’m trying not to be, and have been doing a pretty good job so far, but that means that this year might be particularly explosive…
My family doesn’t really get into it. We don’t see each other often enough to build up any animosity for the holidays, for the most part.
Though it’s a Christmas tradition for us at this point to have a wrapping-paper-ball fight. We try to avoid hitting Granny, but everyone else is fair game.
I couldn’t understand why my Mom would always have fattening food around, and then tell me I couldn’t have any because I was so fat. At holiday time, she’d be pushing food at me, I’d refuse, and she’d lay on a major guilt trip. As soon as I relented, she pointed out my weight problem, and ask me if I “really needed” that food. I guess she was trying to hone her passive-aggressive fighting skills. Incidentally, I’d call her on her hypocritical ways and she’d always play dumb, like she didn’t know what I was talking about.
No fighting just for the sake of fighting with my side of the family, actually. In fact we all downright LIKE each other and get along. I’m talking family togetherness and all!
My husband’s family, though? Let’s see … the last time we did the holidays with Mr.'s family, the argument was about who left the gate open, which enabled the dog, who was in heat, to get out of the yard.
That little episode ended up with my in law’s leaving Grandma’s house, my father in law cried a bit and his BP shot up, and his sister kept calling the house and letting the damn phone ring and ring and ring, insisting she wasn’t the one who left the gate open (she was). Eventually the rest of us got in the car to go look at the Christmas lights at the park to get away from everyone.
The Mr. and I swore off holidays with his family from that point on.
Thursday we will hear about how “someone” had to go to football practice and get those boys out of there so they can go to church. My mom’s family will make a huge deal about how coach S______s had practice at 8:00am. And at 9:30 none of the boys were done and they need to be in church at 10. So church on Thanksgiving day is a huge deal. Coach S______s, who happens to be one of my best friends and went to that school in the '80s, just wants to have FB practice done early enough so that all the normal non-Thanksgiving church going boys can be done with this and get to their families for dinner. Of course Coach S_____s will be the greatest guy in 2 weeks when they win another championship. I just keep my mouth shut because they are all so self absorbed that they don’t know that Coach is a friend of mine and never would listen if I told them.
I avoid my relatives like the plague, and having reached early middle age, have discovered that keeping my time among them short is the key to convivial relations with 'em. An afternoon seems to work nicely for conversation without rancor or argument.
Life’s too short to spend it screamin’ at people you love.
My family does not fight on holidays anymore. I am not sure what changed we used to fight all the time. Now we all cooperate and no one gets upset. My brother in law will leave early because he does not like crowds, my eldest nephew will do the same. My son and daughter will hide for the sam reasons. ( not liking large gatherings seems to be a common problem for us). and that is it. Cleanup is a joint effort. The Little kids are all spoiled rotten because they are good kids anyway. It is just fun. I don’t miss the fights, I like us this way.
Mmm, I just can’t wait for all my holidays to be ruined by having to watch my half-brother sitting across the table from me like some sort of revolting toad-like thing (sorry, toads) completely unaware of what a nasty, sly, vile thing he is. Acting like he has a right to be there or something.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to cut somebody out of your life who’s dead to you when they show up for every freaking holiday?! With their nasty three little children, no less, so you can’t have a holiday without them? As if poisoning your life from afar wasn’t enough?
The rest of you people are overreacting drama queens, however.
For about 5 consecutive Thanksgivings, my father and uncle would spend at least an hour arguing as to whether Teddy Kennedy had been drunk or not at Chappaquiddick. The really odd thing was that these 5 years started in 1979, a full 10 years after the incident. Also, we all lived in Philadelphia, where Teddy wasn’t quite the household name he is up here in Massachusetts. That’s my weirdest Thanksgiving family argument memory.
My extended family is overwhelmingly career-military. Of the four retired officers usually at the table, the lowest ranked was an Army Lieutenant Colonel. I’m a 29 year old “bum” (their word, not mine) who’s spent long periods of time unemployed, living in a truck, and aimlessly wandering several different countries. And I need a haircut. And a razor. And a job (although I have a job this year!). And ambition. And a sense of decency. And… well, you get the idea.
The ones who aren’t military are very, very evangelical Christians, and spend the holidays trying to help me “find the lord.” I live 2,800 miles away from them all.
If you happen to have a Crazy Aunt Rosalie, we might well be related. (Crazy Aunt Rosalie is a family joke - no such person exists, but my cousins and aunt and uncle spoke of her so often since I was about 10 that I thought she was a real person until last year.)
I walked out on Easter dinner utterly exasperated that I couldn’t win an argument about whether Jon Edward actually talks to dead people in a tv studio. It was the only religious aunt in the family…I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought she was one of the intelligent, realistic ones. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when I walked out…
My family is made up of bigots, Baptists, and bigoted Baptists. It’s hell, I tell you. I was a vegetarian for the last couple of years, and was told that that was the first step towards becoming a lesbian. How relieved they will be to see me eat turkey tomorrow. :rolleyes:
