Perfect Strangers or Family Matters?

In addition to traditions the holidays are a time of seeing relatives that we don't see very often. Some are closely related to us, and others are not. Some are people we would hang out with if we weren't related...and some are not.

FOCUS: Tell us about your annoying or strange relatives. Were you close as kids, but grew apart as your interest in fine wines diverged from their interests in sucking back maximal quantities of malt liquor? Did your suddenly realize that there was a reason Mom and Dad didn't let you and the other kids alone in a room with Uncle Fred when you were younger?

 

I think I've told this story before, but my cousin recently converted to Mormonism. She is not trying to convert me, but she has to drop Mormonism into every conversation. I also can't go on hikes on Sundays because she can't do anything on the Sabbath, and she freaks out if the rest of the hiking group goes without her.

Converting to Mormonism was just the tip of the crazy iceberg. She is "addicted" to marijuana, her favorite topic is Nazis, and she dated her first cousin (on her father's side. I'm on her mother's side) for six months.

Despite all this, she is actually one of my favorite cousins. If for no other reason than her insanity entertains me.

 

Living half-way across the country from relatives has its advantages. We no longer have to go from house to house on Thanksgiving and Christmas to make sure we "see everyone" and neither side of the family feels slighted. My mom lives in a home nearby, so unless she flies back to Jersey to spend a holiday with my sister, she comes to our house, and my in-laws come for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, which is fine. In the 10 years we've lived in Texas, my sister has come here twice, my brother never, one brother-in-law and his son once, and the other brother-in-law never--yet they say to us, "Oh, you and the kids aren't coming home for the holidays again this year?" Guess what? This is my home. Why don't you pack up your caravan, get wallet-raped by the airlines and fly down here for a change? What's that? Too much expense and bother?

 

Not really close to either side of my family, dad's side lives all over the country and rarely sees each other. Mom's side is all in the same town she grew up in, but we've bounced around state to state my whole life and have always been just out of range for me to get close to any of my cousins. This has always infuriated my mother who wants me to be a much more family oriented person, but quite frankly I would turn to my friends for help and support before I turned to a family member since my friends have always been there for me.

I don't have anything against my family, I love them all, but I really don't have anything in common with them and haven't gotten to know any of them very well. Also, I hate to say it but there definitely is a class separation, I've always been the spoiled kid, got a free ride to college and landed a white collar job out of school. My cousins are either blue collar or so deep in student loans that they can barely skate by. It still comes up in conversation how lucky I am blah, blah, blah. I'm not denying it at all, but hearing it for 27 straight years has gotten old.

 

Oh, where do I start?

The grandkids in my family (myself included) are the first ones to go continue our education at the college level. My sister and I went to the same private, respected University. Aunt P forced her three kids to go to a public third tier college. My other aunt, Aunt B, just didn't want her kids to be the only ones who stopped at high school. Fine, whatever. It's not really a pissing competition but have at it guys.

My sister went on to grad school, I graduated and took a "Wall Street" job. Aunt P forced her oldest daughter to continue on to grad school, but she was bounced for plagerism and took a part time retail job. The middle kid did two years, never told anyone she dropped out and now works as a line cook. In a chain restaurant. Aunt B's oldest is actually borderline genious and has decided to just hang around the large school she went to. I suppose she is doing well. But she is encouraging her son to follow my footsteps, except you cant do that coming out of a community college.

Then there are the husbands: one is dead, the result of complications from years of heroin abuse. The other hates his job and has a tendancy to show up plastered to family dinners and fall asleep at the table.

Oh, and my grandfather is looney tunes and we arent allowed to talk about it.

And then there are the horrible comments when I come home - usually centered on what I'm wearing ("Why do dressed up? Showing off?" Really? You consider jeans and a jacket - in the cold weather of the Northeast - dressed up?) or the fact that I have a tendancy to change cars every two years or so (fuck you, I worked hard).

Yeah, family dinners are great. If it wasnt for my mother, I wouldnt go to any of them.

 

My wife tells me my family is "weird in that it is so normal." We don't really have anything on my side. My wife's family, however, is an entirely different story. Basically, my mother-in-law treats my side of the family like 'the competition,' and she is constantly fighting for my wife and I's attention and affection. This drives me nuts, but I've lived with it so far.

Holidays are always an issue between the wife and I. My mother-in-law gets upset if we don't see them on a given holiday. Any given holiday. We see them for: New Years Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day morning, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

We go and hang out with my family on the following holidays: Christmas Eve, Labor Day.

That's it. Every year, Christmas Eve rolls around, and my mother-in-law complains that we don't spend it with their family, and they're so slighted by us spending Christmas Eve with my parents. Every year I vow that I'll keep my mouth shut and let my wife handle it, and every year it gets tougher. One year, I am going to go off and explain that we spend all but two holidays with their family, and they can deal with it.

We recently moved back to my home town, where my wife and I grew up. We bought a house a block and a half away from my parents house, where I grew up. We did this for a few reasons (easy for babysitting purposes when we have kids, house is almost brand new because this is just an extension of my old neighborhood, it is a great house that we got a great deal on, etc). My mother-in-law thanks that we chose this house because it is closer to my family than it is to her. She has very seriously considered buying one of the three other houses on our street that are for sale, only to live closer to us than my parents do. Let me say that again: she has considered buying a new house and moving for the sole purpose of living closer to us than my parents do. My mother-in-law lives, literally, a 12 minute drive away, it isn't as if she is far.

Another example: my parents put in a pool over the summer. My in-laws have had a pool for years. The key difference? No one ever uses my in-law's pool. My wife's little brother is 18 and just graduated high school, and is in a very different place in his life than my wife and I. My parents pool, however, is frequently used by everyone in the family. It is also heated, so the water is never ice cold, it is always comfortable. Almost every weekend, we'd go to my parents' house to go swimming and visit with my brothers, sisters-in-law, and my niece and nephew (niece is a little over a year, nephew is 3) to swim and hang out. My brothers and sisters-in-law are all close to my wife and I's age, and we all get along great. My mother-in-law spent all summer dropping not-so-subtle hints that she felt we spent entirely too much time with my family, and needed to go over there to go swimming. Their pool was not heated and was in the shade, making it a constant 68 degrees. In addition, they have two dogs (chocolate labs), and every time anyone goes swimming, my mother thinks it's adorable to throw a ball in the pool, near one of us, and have the dogs dive in and chase it. That's just what I want, a 50 pound dog diving at me while I'm only wearing a bathing suit. When they do, they inevitably catch me or my wife with their paws, and their nails scratch the shit out of us. When we complain, she tells us that it is the dogs' pool, too, and they can swim with us. She also says it is as close to a bath as the dogs usually get. Excuse me if I prefer not to swim in the dogs' fucking bathtub.

I think the breaking point will come when my wife and I finally have kids. I dread the arguments about who gets to see the kids and when, and the stink my mother-in-law will raise when she doesn't get to see the kids on Christmas Eve or if my mom babysits instead of her one day. Fuck, I get annoyed just thinking about it.

I could honestly go on for hours about my mother-in-law's family (my wife's cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles) but I would be typing all day, so let me just say this: After everything I've just ranted about my mother-in-law, I can honestly say she is the most normal and down-to-earth person in her family. My mother-in-law has a very crazy family and had a rough childhood, so I can see why she acts the way she does (which is how I haven't gone off on her yet), and getting into it here would just be a bit much. But every time I sit back and think "wow, she is the normal one..." I have to laugh, cause damn, my mother-in-law is pretty crazy.

 

This is my position on the holidays ever since I moved almost 900 miles away from 90% of my family.

My brother comes down a few times a year from DC, which is also roughly 900 miles away from the family ( seeing a pattern? ) but thats it. No one else has made the trip and none of my friends/family have ever came down despite being invited constantly.

Yet every time the holidays roll around all I get is this shit " Your not coming home? Why? " Why? Why don't you pack up your shit and come down here motherfucker, I moved for a reason, not my fault none of you fools have been out of the shithole county you grew up in.

I just ignore that shit now, I still extend the invites and a place to stay, but never expect anything out of it.

 

My relatives are a gong-show. Let's first examine the crazy on my Mom's side:

Fat Aunt: Your typical loud-mouthed, demanding, lazy un-happy woman. She bosses her husband around to fetch her drinks and like a total idiot he obliges her. She shit-talks everybody in the family behind their back, and nobody ever really stands up to her except for my Dad. She loves gossip, left-over turkey and cries all the time. As I've aged and matured, I've noticed these qualities and I tend to avoid her as often as possible.

The Cousin Who Sleeps With Everyone: My cousin is 24, and has slept with half of Western Canada. She has no shame. She took lessons from Paris Hilton in the art of "flashing her undies to the world." Oh, and she's a really loud chewer.

The Opinionated Cousin Who Fails at Everything. Tried going to school to become a mechanic and dropped out. He tried to start a band with his pals from high-school and it never got off the ground. He doesn't drive, and works part-time at New York Fries. Talking to him is a fucking nuisance because he's one of those constant interrupters and one-uppers. If you've done something awesome, there's a 100 percent change that he'll (lie) say that he's done something similar, only in a more dominant way.

To my Dad's side:

Religious Uncle Who Alienates His Entire Family: My Uncle is a fanatical Catholic. He's got a great heart, and deep down he means well. But he has made some absolutely horrendous choices and has become something a black-sheep in the family. He has written nasty letters to his own children criticizing their career paths, to all of his siblings for similar reasons, and he even wrote a seething letter to one of my cousins because he is gay.

The Aunt Who Won't Take No For an Answer. She'll ask you if you want pie. You'll say no. You'll get a piece of pie, and you'd better damn well eat it, or else you're wasting food.

 

What a timely topic. I saw just saw my third cousins for the first time in 4 years yesterday.

Maria, who I still remember as the annoying toddler that crawled all over the kitchen when her family would more regularly visit us when I was a teenager, has grown into a obnoxious, immature, awfully behaved 14-year old that wears slutty clothes. (God, just writing that makes me feel old) Among the normally stupid crap that comes out of her mouth, she was legitimately pissed at her brother's wife that she decided to sell her $1k handbag instead of giving it to her for free. Seriously.

Speaking of her brother's wife, Elena, I like her a lot, but she wasn't half as cool or mature as I remembered her when I was 19 and she was 20. (We're 23 and 24, now) Nice person, by no means stupid, but not special, and typical in a lot of ways. She's about 5'9", 115 pounds, refuses to eat any dessert, and trained as a professional dancer since she was a little girl in Ukraine. The funniest moment of the night was when, at one point, I mentioned that she was "skinny", and she replied with "no I'm not! You just say that because you're used to these fat American girls!" And of course, Maria, who had just mentioned she was 5' 4", 125 pounds, and is concerned about her weight, was well within earshot.

She did gain points in my book, however, when she called her husband, my third cousin, a fucking idiot for once having a tongue piercing his crazy ex talked him into.

 

My family is pretty normal. And by normal I mean that all the men are misogynistic drunkards who think nothing of demolishing a six-pack before 11am on a holiday and will, during family get togethers, humiliate any other man in their family for assisting with the shit that "women are supposed to do".

Preparing sides, setting up cutlery/crockery etc. If a woman asks you to do it, you're supposed to respond with an incredulous look and keep drinking your beer/wild turkey/rakija/rum. Personally, I'm fine with helping out, but I'll be fucked if I'm going to give those cunts ammunition to rip into me and I'm sure as shit going to tear holes into any man caught carrying tablecloths because his girlfriend said so.

Both of my uncles married crazy women, but their batshit insanity is harmless. Just a bit of busybody nonsense that nobody pays attention to. All in all, everyone loves our family get togethers - I can see why they do, we're peasants originally from the Balkans who do not care about anything but eating a lot of good food, getting shitfaced and making fun of each other.