Chaos Attraction

Avoiding Family Holidays

2014-12-17, 3:34 p.m.

I won a Best of Holidailies! Awesome!!!!!

On a related note about advice columns, I read the Dear Prudence chat and saw RAGE. RAGE, I TELL YOU.

Q. Avoiding Family Holidays: My career has led me to go to school and get a good job far away from family. My parents and my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew still live in the same area so every holiday I fly to see them. Last Christmas, my father declared that holidays were only for people who had children and that anyone who doesn�t have children is worthless and has no reason to live. Everyone but myself at the table agreed. I was the only person at that table that doesn�t have a child and needless to say I was hurt. After the festivities were done, I took my father aside to politely express my hurt to him. He starting yelling at me that I was just jealous of my sibling and that he stands by his judgment. I�m glad my sibling is happy but I never want to be her and I love my life. Before that holiday, I thought I had a supportive family that was proud of me. Now I find myself not wanting to fly back for any of the holidays. How should I handle my family�s requests that I visit?"

"A: You could say something like, �After last year�s discussion, I�m afraid I simply can�t guarantee that if I fly out to see you my plane will be hit by a drone, explode, and then my worthless life will blessedly be over.� I�m glad you spoke up to your father because sometimes people say idiotic things then when called out on it, explain, �I didn�t mean you, honey!� But apparently he meant you. You say to your family that you remain shaken by the dreadful things said about your life. You don�t feel you�re being overly sensitive when you object to being told you have no reason to live. If they want to revise their stand, then you will be happy to listen, and then you will consider if you have reason to come for the holiday."

Your family LITERALLY THINKS YOU ARE WORTHLESS AND SAID SO TO YOUR FACE AT CHRISTMAS. Do NOT go back for Christmas unless they apologize and kiss your ass up the wazoo. Seriously. You called Dad on it and he wasn't even sorry and didn't apologize? My thoughts on this are so incredibly foul right now that if I printed them, I would really piss people off. I would yell. I would make incredibly mean, rude remarks about my worthlessness that are even worse than what Prudie said. You know what? FUCK THOSE BASTARDS, FUCK THEM RIGHT IN THE EAR. These folks are making most of our crappy relatives look good right now. Hell, even my relatives who obviously never liked me and probably thought similarly never said THAT shit to my face, and they had next to no tact. If your family thinks you are worthless and have no reason to live without a precious baby in your lap, then clearly they don't want you around anyway until you pop one out. So why go? FUCK THEM. That's disowning/dumping territory as far as I am concerned.

The only thing you do for them for Christmas, as far as I am concerned, is to send them a card like this. Or possibly something like this.


In other news:

(a) It's payday, THANK GOD. And my paycheck actually went through, which was looking doubtful. Whew. I need to reform my evil shopping ways.

(b) Mom finally checked her texts about the car still leaking and has been pissed at me since for not, say, putting the car in a nice garage. I don't have one, I don't have access to one, my friends' garages are full. I don't have a huge plastic bag to cover the car with. I'm debating whether or not it's worth it to try to put a trash bag on the door, but since I have to drive it around tonight to a class, I don't think that's the most practical thing to do either. Nor is duck-taping the door shut probably going to work so well either.

Though oddly enough, it rained horrendously last night (I was so glad I wasn't driving in it) and yet I do not have inches of water in the car right now. It is only mildly flooded as of this morning still. Go figure. But right now, there isn't a darned thing I can think of that will work.

(c) I went to a card making class with Dawn last night, which I ended up writing about and posting pics of over here. This was going to be a journal entry, but ended up being too short for my standards.

(d) Dawn showed me the plastic canvas menorah she is making for her boss. It's almost done except for finishing sewing up the base. I wish I'd yanked out my camera for pics of that, because it was pretty dang cool. She even got circles to work and has a bunch of battery-run LED candles in it. Adorable.

(e) The Gavle Goat's little brother was unfixable. The goat is too depressed to blog. I wore the goat sweater again last night because yesterday was Christmas Sweater Day at work and had to explain it to people at the card class. Most people seemed amused except one chick who just kept staring blankly. Oh well. I also was looking on Etsy for ugly sweaters and saw a Festivus shirt--maybe THAT is a sweater idea, right there. If I can sew a pole to a sweater, that is....

(f) I need to recommend that everyone listen to Girl On Guy's interview with Kirsten Johnston. Hoooooly crap, she's been through a lot of shit in the last few years. Here's a link to the blog post she mentions around the middle of the podcast (around 37 minutes is when I was really perking up). Today's Ask Polly, in which she compares herself to Dear Sugar, is also worth a read.

(g) Regarding the day's topic of miracles: it's kind of a sore subject for me. I've had a few minor ones go down here and there over the years, but I do seriously wonder what the hell the criteria is for some miracles being fulfilled and some not. Why some minor shit like oh, extended amounts of oil might get given in one moment (or oh, raising the dead), but not the next thing. Why if you're hoping for divine intervention and praying for it on say, something major, it doesn't come.

This topic comes up a lot in the novel Cold Sassy Tree. The relevant quotes about the whole thing pretty much can be found here, but the basic resolution on the question of "how come God said to ask and I'll give it, but he doesn't" boils down to "he only meant about spiritual stuff, like giving you the strength to stand things." I....well, I'm not an atheist, but I can't say that I feel like anybody or anything other than me is ah, helping me stand it. I'd like some miraculous intervention of a positive sort, but I don't think it's happening. I'll have to go on as ever.


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