Thanksgiving, Christmas and Chanukah are approaching. You know what that means: being forced to spend time in the company of a family member who drives you up the wall. We’ve all got one. Tell us about your least favorite relation.
I love him dearly, but I dread seeing my brother. He has, in recent years, made a habit of dropping flagrantly racist comments in casual conversation. Also, he likes baiting me, the sole liberal in the family, with contentious political statements that will lead to an indictment of how I live my life, if I let it. It’s not even that I’m offended; it’s that I know he’s trying to start shit, and it aggravates me that he needs to do that on the few days a year we see each other anymore. It’s either fighting or swallowing it, neither of which I particularly enjoy.
My boyfriend and I are spending Thanksgiving alone together, so I’m avoiding that. On Christmas, Mike is coming home with me to meet the family. I hope my brother acts like a human being. It’s not that Mike is going to be offended-- ice doesn’t melt in his mouth-- he has a much better atttitude about this kind of thing than I do. I just don’t want my closest living relative to act like a moron in front of a future member of the family.
Ah, the holidays. Pass the Nexium.
My family circle is shrinking, and I can only think of one – hubby’s daughter, who never eats. She’s 35 or so, married, a kindergarten teacher. Very slim and determined to stay that way. But it’s insulting to the hostess (me), not to even have a bit of salad or make a plate from the veggie tray.
Our house is clean, there’s no pet hair in the food. Why won’t she eat something? Her husband makes up for it by coming back for thirds, but still . . .
Not really a relative, but this year my BIL and his wife are hosting Thanksgiving. All of her family will be there and my husband and I have only met them once before and it didn’t go well. It was shortly after my son was diagnosed with Autism and they acted like he was contagious. :mad:
Also, they all attend the same church, including my other inlaws. So, we will be the heathen outcasts of the group.
Incredibly, we don’t have any. Sure, there are some kin that drive us nuts, but we see them very infrequently (due to distance) and they certainly aren’t Holiday regulars. It’s usually either my mom or her mom, my sis or her bro, and all are manageable for that amount of time.
Now and forever, my brother-in-law. God, he’s a tool. But to be fair to him, he’s far better than my mother’s husband, whose only positive attribute is that he lives a thousand miles away and stays there for the holidays.
My sister with the plastic happy face. She really can not stand me & I really can not stand her. She puts on this “mask” of a happy face. Gag. One of the many reasons I celebrate the holidays with just my wife & daughters.
My evil stepmother. She who must always be center of attention and pouts or pitches some kind of fit in a completely un-ignorable manner when she is not. She who decides to cook an elaborate holiday meal all by herself and then freaks out because nobody is helping, despite numerous offers from all the kids to bring a dish of some variety. She who insists on cooking a vegan dish for my brother and tells him not to bring anything and then always, always, ALWAYS puts cheese in it, forcing him to live on cranberry sauce. She who freakishly obsesses over the holiday spirit to the point of sucking every ounce of holiday spirit out of the holiday. I’m gonna get all Ghost of Christmas Future on her ass if she keeps it up.
My mom, who is usually a very nice person who is fun to be around. But every year, she insists on throwing a huge, all-family Christmas party, which causes her so much stress she completely stresses out. On top of that, she deeply dislikes most of my dad’s relatives, who make up about 50% of the guest list. So the month leading up to Christmas is one unending litany about how trashy my dad’s family is. What’s wierd is how totally irrational it is. This year, my cousin is coming down from Washington with his wife and new baby, and my mother went completely apeshit about it. Except, she’s already invited both his parents (he’s an alcoholic chauvinist, and she’s the reason why), his half-brother (a recovering drug addict with a criminal record), plus said half brother’s wife and family (which consists of two step kids and an illegitimate daughter from a previous girlfriend). They can all come, but for some reason my mom wanted to draw the line at my cousin: the kid who kept his nose clean growing up, became a fireman, owns a home, and is raising a family. She wanted to invite everyone else in his immediate family to our house, but leave him out. The hell? How does she think that would be remotely appropriate?
Shoot. That was supposed to read, “causes her so much stress she completely Grinches out.”
One of my sisters-in-law (hereinafter SIL3) especially qualifies for this thread:
Marriage #1: Was with a nice guy and was seemingly OK, until she ran 1000 miles away with a guy who ends up being
Marriage #2: she has a child with him. Her parents drive the 1000 miles to her new home to see their granddaughter and SIL3 calls the cops on them for sitting outside in their car. The cops were not sympathetic to SIL3. Later, after Husband #2 apparently starts hitting her, she moves back home and almost immediately begins
Marriage #3, which is to this bizarre, immature idiot who seemed like likely material for being a child molester. She eventually dumps him and starts diddling illegal alien migrant farm workers, one of whom impregnates her with child #2. Before Child #2 is born, the farm worker returns to Mexico and she takes up with Husband #2 again. This becomes
Marriage #4 (or #2A?). She is now leaving him again., and is apparently hanging out with the migrants.
Jerry Springer, are you listening???
Dang, some of these make my dislike of one BIL to be downright mild. And really, my dislike of seeing him extends well beyond the holiday season. He knows everything about everything, he’s ultra-right-wing-conservative and a hard-core fundie, but he’s just not that bright. I’ve learned to tune him out most of the time, and I don’t expect I’ll have to spend more than about 8 or 9 hours around him.
I like my relatives and enjoy spending time with them. It’s fun and it’s only a day. Sadly, every year I seem to have less family and I miss them all.
Rubystreak, I’m sorry your brother is such a putz. If your near NJ, you guys are welcome to come to my house.
Not exactly dread, and to some extent I find them amusing, but both my husband’s brother and his BIL. Rednecks to the core, both of them, in spite of the fact that brother was born and raised in this area. Not too bright, badly educated, and in the case of the BIL, the world’s authority on everything.
Last year they spent large parts of Christmas Eve comparing notes on their new dentures, which of course required said teeth to be removed for discussion. Those teeth were in and out and in and out like yo-yos. I have a hair-trigger gag reflex about anything related to mouth and teeth or anything like that. So I spent most of the evening just not looking at either of them.
My Uncle Bill, my Aunt Katie’s husband. Aunt Katie is my dad’s youngest sister, and I love her dearly, as I do her daughter, my cousin Amanda. But Uncle Bill is obnoxious and disgusting.
Okay, my other three uncles, Uncle Craig, Uncle Tony, and Uncle Bob, can all be hysterically funny. Especially Uncle Craig-he has a knack for doing bathroom and off-color humor, but it doesn’t come off as offensive, just really goofy. Uncle Bill, it’s like he’s trying to be like Uncle Craig, but he can’t pull it off, and he comes off like a dirty old man. Like he once made a crack about helping my cousin’s fiancee keep her thong bathing suit from riding up, or something like that, it was all I could do not to slap him. He really oogs me out-and I think my other cousins feel the same way.
It’s a shame, because we don’t get to see Aunt Katie’s family as much as I do everyone else, because they’re in Philly. But when they come for the holidays, of course, Uncle Bill’s there too. sigh
I love my brother. I look forward to meeting him at get togethers–if there somewhere other than my house. I do not like having him in my house. He’s coming for Thanksgiving. I’m dreading it already.
He’s not a bad person. His problem is he tries to complement his wife and ends up insulting me. For example, the last time he visited he noticed some dust had piled up on top of the blades of one of my ceiling fans. I’d completely overlooked it. He remarked “Becky [his wife] never overlooks household chores, and she had four jobs compared to your one.” (they have four kids, hence the “four jobs.”)
He doesn’t just do it to me. I’ve noticed him make similar comments in other people’s homes (trying to complement his wife and just insulting his host or hostess).
PS… her 65-YO parents (nice people, but true enablers) furnish free 5-day-per-week day care, plus clothes and some food, for both of SIL3’s kids. She’s never thanked them - she just argues with them, between mouthfuls of their food.
My wife and I are getting ready to travel to visit her mother, who has always been a very proper/judgemental/angry person, even though I’ve always gotten along with her.
We are going now, rather than at Thanksgiving…she is failing rapidly and may not be around then. I guess the policy in our family is to ignore the bait that we all put out for others to snap up.
Sad that I know about the tensions that can exist when families get together for those forced holidays. I have experienced it in the past…at weddings for crying out loud!
Hopefully everything will go well for all of us.
Thanks! I appreciate the offer. I am actually a big hater of Thanksgiving ever since my mom died 14 years ago. It’s not the same. It’s better if I just avoid everyone and just spend time in a setting where I can cook a lot of food and eat it with a minimum of human interaction. If I went home, I’d have to eat at my sister-in-law’s uncle’s house. Not that he isn’t a very nice guy, but it’s not my family.
What is the Thanksgiving equivalent of the Grinch? Whatever it is, I’m that. My brother is just the icing on the Grinch-cake. For some reason, Christmas isn’t as bad. Probably because my uncle and cousin crack me up. They counteract my brother’s jerkishness.
All of them.