Whoa, Hec is just laying it on the line tonight.

"DID YOU EVEN READ MY FUCKING PAPER????!!!!"

I think this is a perfectly valid tack to take.

I love the holidays, but I'm really really missing them. We didn't do anything for any of them last year, so I'm hoping we can do SOMETHING this year for Halloween at least...and we'll see family in early December, so that's something.

I take it back - we went to another embassy family's house for Thanksgiving. It was an act of true Christian charity on their part to invite us; they knew we didn't have anyone to share T-day with, so they invited us even though we made them really uncomfortable. I don't know why why bugged them, but I have nothing but respect for the invitation.

I respect the fact that other people love the holidays, and there are parts I like as well, and Tom and I are trying to make our own traditions.

But for me, I've dreaded the holidays for as long as I can remember, the family dynamics before (who goes where? who hosts? who can't go and is a selfish cunt for it?) and during (yay, holidays on vodka and whiskey @@) just magnfiy the hell out of everything that is hard all year round.

So, you know, step off Hec, and enjoy your holidays, (I look forward to hearing about them) but give me a little credit that maybe I'm not just whining for the fun of it.

Unless that's my thing now, in which case, I'll stop.

Anyway. bah.

Were it only that simple. However, as a married person with a small child and both families within spitting distance, let me assure you, it's not.

Of course there are compromises and I have to make plenty of them around the holidays. But ultimately, if you're the only one making the sacrifices and it's making you miserable you can say "No" some of the time instead of rolling over for family expectations of Happy FunTime Holiday Hoo Haw.

espcially since I pointed out that it's not the holidays, it is in fact my suckiness that sucks.

I don't think you suck. I just think saying "No" when people (even family) are jacking up your misery level is one of the keys to adult mental health. "Fuck it" is also a useful concept. Cashmere should say, "Fuck it" when her family expects to drive with a little Kinder all over Ohio for the holidays.

Whoa, Hec is just laying it on the line tonight.

I'm living dangerously! Amych's going to punch me in the nose any second. I can feel it coming.

I just think saying "No" when people (even family) are jacking up your misery level is one of the keys to adult mental health. "Fuck it" is also a useful concept.

I agree. (see: elopment) but I gotta pick my battles and I can't say Fuck It *every* year.

The only way to control some of the holiday stuff was to move across country. For the record, I like the holidays. and I like my family, both sides. Plus, I like all the in laws too. However, when we all lived within spitting distance - it was all crazy. really crazy. If I hated them - it would have been easy. The best I could do when we were near family - was to make sure it wasn't going to kill us - and make sure that no one ( including DH) tried to change the schedual. Being the hardass around the holidays - less fun than you'd imagine.

I don't have to find Public Enemy this year...some lovely people made me discs with Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield and etc. I'm gonna watch the Christmas Homicide where Gee ends up beating everyone at Hearts and...after that, nsm with the planfulness. But I'm not being tortured by stepmonster again. We're gonna have Other Plans.

t ka-POW

Were it only that simple. However, as a married person with a small child and both families within spitting distance, let me assure you, it's not.

I want to remind you that there's a tradeoff here. Families that are short distances away can babysit and do other nice things, at the cost of enduring your parents being in the neighborhood. Families that are long distances away aren't present to tell you what a horrible parent or person you are, but once a year you have to deal with airports, insensitive assholes who don't want "screaming babies" on their flights, changing diapers in bathrooms, and 5-7 days of super-concentrated parental crap.

There are so many times I'd like to drop Annabel off at one of her grandmother's houses for the evening, but that's hard to do with the closest one being two flights and 2000 miles away.

I don't have to find Public Enemy this year...some lovely people made me discs with Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield and etc.

Oh yeah, I could make you a soul xmas mix easily too.

ka-POW

I knew it.

Nora, insent.

{{{vw}}} and {{{Gud}}}

I'm a bit more mellow about holidays than I have been in the past. With my folks in their late 70s there's a bit of an enjoy-them-while-they-last vibe about them these days. It helps that I'm single and have no kids, so I don't have to juggle multiple family demands.

But I am looking forward to the day when I have a place of my own with guest space. Then I can say, "I'll be spending Christmas/Thanksgiving/Easter at home this year. And you, my beloved [familial title here] are welcome to join me."

It will certainly beat sleeping on the couch at my parents'.