I’m not Puerto Rican, but I’m Mexican and I know how the latino (hispanic, chicano, whatever) culture is like. Amp is right about the family traditions and respecting the family, etc. Family is a big deal (that’s not to say that it isn’t anywhere else but it’s magnified in our culture).
So this is what you do Amp. Turn it over to Mrs. Amp! You say you’re going to participate and then you let Mrs. Amp do all the work. Next year, you do the same thing. It works for my dad. At family gatherings, I don’t think my dad has spent more than an hour away from the television in 30+ years.
I think its a different matter. I’m with Amp x-mas isn’t actally a fun time of year, and I don’t enjoy being around lots of festive people. I think the whole problem is having to be WITH the inlaws and their traditions not simply the traditions.
CRorex and Amp you just don’t get it. Christmas (and what ever other holiday you hate) is a time for making other people (including your wife, who you LOVE) feel good. It is not about you and your scrooge-ass feelings. So act like the rest of us, slap a phony-ass smile on your fat face, and pretend to laugh at all of your father-in-law’s stupid-ass jokes that you’ve heard 5 fucking years in a row. When the going gets tough, you spike the fucking egg nog. Now quitcherbitching.
I know that. Which is why I suggested letting her do the work. If they’re practically forcing him to participate, Mrs. Amp can do the leg work which frees up Amp to plant himself in front of the television or come down with a 24-hour bug. Like I said, my dad has hosted and yet avoided almost all family gatherings completely by turning it over to mom. And when Mrs. Amp complains that he didn’t participate, he can point to the packages and say I helped pay for that.
If it’s all about making other feel good, maybe Mrs. Amp should make Amp feel good by letting him stay home [sub]and I’m sure hot monkey-sex would also be appreciated[/sub].
I’m sick and fucking tired of people telling me to cheer up.
I love giving gifts to the people I care about and I enjoy spending time with them. I love seeing my family, I just fucking hate this time of year.
To fill you in on part of a story from another post:
4 years ago, I finally realize that I’m in love with a good friend of mine, and she realized it too. We had always been there for each other when nobody gave a damn. I had to watch some guy in a bar pick her up because I didn’t have the balls to tell her how I felt, but finally I did and we started seeing each other. It was the only fucking time in my life I had actually been happy, truely happy.
My mom didn’t like her mother. Enough so that she didn’t like the fact that we were together. Which is ironic because our entire family hates my grandmother (mom’s mom). So she starts talking about how much she hates my gf’s mom to her friend. Who happens to be a close friend of my gf’s mom and who can’t keep her mouth shut.
To keep a long story short she tried to press rape charges against me, a restraining order and eventually all of this blew up when my gf told me x-mas eve that she just got back from cheating on me. She did that to get back at me for all the times I cheated on her, which she heard from her mother. Finally she couldn’t take it any longer. Nobody told me this, I found this all out later.
X-mas day. Another gf, and a very nice girl whom I met was killed in a terrorist attack somewhere in Isreal. She didn’t deserve to be killed, and I won’t go into details because I don’t think anyone wants to or need to hear about them.
Hot Monkey Sex Day, now there is a holiday I could really get into. Of course, I still wouldn’t want to spend that with the in-laws either.
But seriously, I just hate the fact that people seem to lose so much common sense and respect for others’ wishes during the holiday season. If someone doesn’t feel like celebrating Christmas the way “normal” people celebrate it then leave them be. Don’t keep trying to push them into something festive just because you feel that thats the way it should be celebrated.
And if someone doesn’t want to participate in your little gatherings just respect their wishes and don’t try to give them a guilt trip over it. Thats all.
It’s okay Coldfire, it happens to the best of us. The idea of white people being picked on by those big mean other races is amusing to me, and I enjoy playing around with the idea. I guess I should have made my sarcasm more obvious…
For the European Americans: Don’t worry guys! White People already have their own TV show. It’s called Friends.
Isn’t it interesting how what you believe yourself alters your perceptions? I’m a rabid atheist, yet my children get to celebrate the rituals and the holidays of so many different faiths between November and January. They understand each of the celebrations, they find joy in all.
Over the next month my children will complete their various involvements in Ramadam, Hannukah, and Christmas, and they don’t see any conflicts in sharing each of those “seasons” with their friends and their families - they appreciate the history and the beauty of each faith while not seeing them as “competing”. I don’t know whether my children will ultimately choose to be secular or religious, but I do know that by being welcomed into the homes of people who live their beliefs rather than simply preach them they’ll make their choices from the best possible examples of each.
I was trying, in my own little way, to suggest that you need to look into a little therapy and Prozac before you spread your hatred for your wife and her family to the Miliamp.
There are things I do out of respect for the people I want to spend time with, and I’ve taught my children to do the same.
I genuflect when I enter a Catholic church (I also do something similar when I enter a courtroom); I cover myself and remove my shoes when I enter a mosque; I eat kosher when dining with Jewish friends at their homes during Hannukah.
These are acts of courtesy, not a statement of endorsement for their beliefs.
I don’t allow illegal drugs in my home ever, and the vast majority of my friends at least smoke pot - if they don’t have enough respect for my home to honour my rules in short bursts, then they are no longer welcome. Ditto, I will honour and respect the belief systems and the rituals which my friends choose to observe at certain times of the year. If I don’t want to honour and respect them, then I can simply stay away until that time has passed.
Wow andros, you are good. How much do I owe you doc? :rolleyes:
Fuck you for that asinine comment. I have no hatred for anyone. I was just pissed that they decided, on their own, to include me in some stupid little shit that I did not want to be a part of, and then to try and make me feel ashamed for bowing out graciously.
So Einstein at what point in your courtship of the future Ms. Amp did it dawn on you, even fleetingly, that she and her “trailer trash” family were highly invested in Christmas ceremony, traditions and ritual and you were not or was the monkey sex so good that you figured you’d just muddle through? Smooth move there slick. Now you’re invested in a relationship and a child with a woman you obviously have massive contempt for.
Fuck you for being such an ignorant, thoughtless idiot and making a child with a woman who is probably going to divorce your curmudgeonly ass before too much more time has passed. Your child will grow in a broken home because you were too arrogant and stupid to think about the consequences of marrying someone with deep seated beliefs and traditions diametrically opposed to your cynical crypto-nihilistic pretensions.
Even though I’m aware of the commercialization and plasticness that has infected Christmas, the season still gives me a warm feeling in spite of myself. Guess it’s pretty hard to overcome a lifetime of societal indoctrination (“You WILL like the holidays!”), but what the hell – I don’t think it’s worth the effort to try to overcome it.
