Holidays and other frustrations

Kelley at Kelly's Case de Chaos got me thinking about the up coming holidays and to be honest I DREAD this time of year.

Nothing about the holidays makes me really happy. My only joy is seeing my daughter's anticipation of the season and her waking up on Christmas morning filled with excitement and joy.

The rest of the time can just suck it!

Since these will be long drawn out sob stories, I'll do them little by little--We begin with Thanksgiving at the Out-laws:

For the last 20 years (20 years--holy shit) we have spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws. This means too much food and me sitting in a corner high on the annual overdose of allergiy meds just so I can function (barely) in a house filled with 4 cats. (I am horribly allergic to cats--when the first cat they had died, I felt nothing but relief--but then MIL brought home 2 cats from the farm in Indy and then took in 2 more cats when Grandma passed away. I secretly think she took great joy in adding to my misery).

I do not enjoy Thanksgiving one bit because I still end up miserable--and spend the next week recovering from it--people who don't have severe allergies just don't get how much it affects people who do. It's horrible--even high on meds, my chest tightens up, I lose my voice, I sneeze, the eyes water, the nose runs--IT SUCKS. I made it thru ok when there was just one cat--but 4 is too much for me to handle. I cannot even ask her to put the cats in a back bedroom--because according to her--that is CRUEL. But fuck what it does to me right?

Then after dinner we are forced to provide THE LIST. THE LIST my friends is a LIST of things we all want for Christmas--stuff we do not need, nor really want, but a LIST MUST BE PROVIDED. Last year, hubby had just lost his job--so we said we would NOT be providing a list, nor would we be purchasing for the adults. The niece and nephew would recieve a gift--but not the GROWN ADULTS WHO CAN BUY THEIR OWN SHIT--ahem.

We asked that we not be given anything as we were all set. They could buy something for DD if they wanted too--but nothing CRAZY. OH MY SHIT--they lost their minds. Not a one of them could understand WHY we had to cut back--jeezsus chrimeny people--your brother HAS NO JOB! We need a roof over our heads and food on the table--I don't need another crappy sweater that I hate and is not my taste.

You have to understand that these people do not really see or talk to each other thru out the year--the only time they "show love" is thru the purchase of THINGS. I swear to you--if I'm lying, I'm dying--it has NEVER taken less than 4 hours to open Christmas gifts at the outlaws. And this was before there were small children.

Spending $200 PER PERSON was not unheard of--and it was EXPECTED. DH has his parents, 1 brother and 2 sisters and all of their spouses--and it was expected that all people would receive a multitude of gifts from every person. This foolishness happened the weekend before Christmas because the parents went to Indy to celebrate with J's family. They could not even be around the family for the actual holiday--but we have to spend over $1000 on people just to "show how much" they mean to us.

It was fun at first--I never lived in a family who did that kind of thing--my parents said "The baby Jesus only got 3 presents--why do you think you deserve anything more than that?" So 3 presents it was--plus what ever we got from Grandparents and Uncles.

I had never seen so many gifts in one place. But--like everything in excess, the novelty wore off and I began to dread it. The hunting for gifts, the wasted money the foolishness and greed. One Thanksgiving, I tried to say--hey, lets draw names amonst the adult children and keep this under control--I was called everything but a human by a sister-in-law.

I was told by her to shut up and deal with it.

And the holiday was ruined for me after that.

To Be Continued..........