EY's Rants and Raves

I love the holiday season. I used to decorate my cube with lights, candy canes, etc. I have Christmas shirts, sweatshirts, used to have a bell on a nice cord (I think someone threw it away in lieu of killing me with it), socks, tennis shoes. I love decorating the house, a tree, singing carols (which I hope to do tonight), baking cookies, adopting an Angel from an Angel Tree, eating things I don't get to eat any other time of year (like dressing, broccoli cheese casserole, my Mom's Parker House rolls, ham from a big bone-in ham), Christmas parties with my friends, "the Hen Party" (which I'll have to miss this year because we'll be visiting Henry), seeing my in-laws (yes, you read that correctly; my in-laws rock. The Boy's are questionable....keep reading). I'd love to have a Christmas open house or cocktail hour or something like that, but I never have time. And I love, love LOVE Christmas lights. I'm already planning a time to drive around with a thermos of hot chocolate.

I could really be an obnoxious Christmas nut very easily. Seriously. The kind of person you look at and say "boy, she's lost her mind". One of the reasons I don't is because the holidays are never easy.....

I hate the holidays. I hate the feeling of dread I have, knowing that my Mom will be calling any minute to demand our exact schedule for December. Even if I happened to have it, it won't be what she wants since in no year will it EVER involve us spending the entire month with her. I hate how trying to get us here, there and everywhere drives The Boy and I nuts. We each so dislike my Mom's attitude that I am reluctant to bring it up. It's less than no fun bringing up a topic that will stress both of us out. I still don't know what we'll be doing this year.

The Boy and I will miss the annual Christmas with Dad's side of the family because we'll be out of town seeing our new nephew. I honestly don't care that we're not going. I've never been close to anyone on that side. Another sense of dread there since I never know when the discussions will turn political, racist, sexist and/or homophobic. We're always the odd ones out there and it's an uncomfortable situation. My "higher minded self" is always tempted to say "look folks, I will not sit here and listen to this. If we can't change the subject, I'm outta here". However, if I did that, I may as well plan to never see any of them again as those are minds that ain't changing. No big loss to me, honestly, but it would mortify my parents. So I sit, try to talk to someone else about something else, breathe deeply to keep the blood pressure in check, try not to clench my jaw.

Now that there are kids (5 of them), the inevitable "so when are you going to have one?" comes up. Since The Boy still holds this fantasy of what children are like (no work all fun...one of the major reasons they're not an option...I'm not doing all the work so he can have all the "fun"), he always says "oh, I'm not the one who doesn't want them". So now, I'm some freak of nature who not only won't "give my parents a grandchild", I also won't "give my husband a child". If I could find somewhere that I could get to let my parents/hub play with a kid until they get tired of it, take care of kid in the meantime and I didn't have to be involved, heck, I'd do THAT in a second. I'm sure it would be hella expensive, but if they were all that interested, they could kick in some cash.

So as usual, I'm of two minds about the holidays. I'd like to only think of the good and ignore the upcoming bad, but I know that will only make the issue worse.