Do you have family members that make you dread the holidays?

I do not have any family members that drive me crazy, mainly because I have no family members.
I have a sister out in California who WOULD drive me crazy, but I have barely even seen her in 40 years. I barely talk to her now. She is so damn narcissistic and emotionally needy, that I just can’t deal with it.

Not after the carnage of 1997 ~

Oh wait. Yes. I have one. My daughter in law’s mother. I hate that woman, and I don’t say that lightly.

Thankfully no. Doesn’t mean I’ve never been aggravated by family, but that kind of holiday family drama that I hear about and see in the movies has never applied to my family. Part of that is simply that my family is small—if we had a huge bunch of relatives coming, I’m sure at least one of them would piss me off, but as it is, while I’m not that close to everyone who’s coming over this year, none of them make me dread the holidays. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the fact that it seems like I’m the only young person in my family who’s not in a committed relationship right now. My sister’s married, my brother has a girlfriend of 5 years, my cousin’s engaged, and I’m the lonesome one. Oh well :)

Family members not so much, housestaff demanding xmas bonus pay…much muchly!

@Demosthenes Next year will be your year to find that special person. You’re too intelligent and nice to be single long.
My family is down to me and 2 brothers. Even if someone got on my nerves, I realize how short life is and that I could lose one of them in the blink of an eye, So if I feel myself getting a bit aggravated, I stop and remember what I have.
But trust me, this hasn’t always been the case. I’ve been with extended family members thinking “if she laughs like a hyena one more time, I’m going to stab her in the eyeball.”

I am probably that family member.

I don’t particularly care for Christmas dinner or get-togethers and I absolutely detest the Thanksgiving “holiday” with all its emphasis on food that I do not generally care for and the frenetic activity involved with the food preparation and the subsequent stress, not only about getting it all ready but the dread that it will not turn out perfect, not only on me but on all the others.
Give me a plate of tamales and refried beans and I am happy.

With my immediate family scattered and having been so since the mid 70’s we always had the holidays at my in-laws. All four children and their families would show up, all crowding into a house that was too small to hold them all; loud, hectic and stressful. This was my holiday season for 30 years. About ten years ago something that happened in Vegas that did not stay in Vegas and this came to a crashing end.

All the women in the family took a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate my Mother-in-laws birthday. As one of the activities they signed up for and went on a pub crawl As they boarded the bus after the last stop one of my nieces said something insulting to my daughter-in-law and the shit hit the fan. No blows were thrown, only because of the intervention of other family members but things were said and feelings were hurt and the two women (both in their early 20’s) did not speak for the rest of the trip. My wife told her sister to stay out of it and let them sort it out between themselves but, like Ron White once said, “I had the right to remain silent….but I didn’t have the ability” my S-I-L had to jump in feet first and pick sides.

The result was a family split that survives to this day. Everyone is still civil with each other but it was the end of the huge family get-together. Now my M-I-L takes turns going to dinner at either our house (or one of our kids) or my sister-in-laws house (or one of her kids). One brother-in-law goes wherever his mom goes and the other doesn’t go to either. Starting a couple of years back, each sister will make noises about getting together but neither expects the other to show up at the family holiday.

Disfunction in action.

@rojo If you make the tamales, I’ll bring the margarita’s! If I wasn’t afraid of disappointing both mom’s, I’d be out of there, but since none of the other kids feel any obligation whatsoever to even ASK what their mom is planning, someone has to step up. Unbelievable. Loved your story!

And to top it off I have just been informed that Wednesday we have to clean the whole house!

Why????

Thursday there will be a ravenous horde of ankle biters, pre-teens and other assorted riff-raff coming to traipse through my house leaving stick fingerprints, dirt, grass, grime and dropped food all over the place and once they are sated and move on you will not be able to tell that the house was ever cleaned let alone done the day before.

Ah well, as mom says, “If you have none to make you cry, you’ll have none to make you laugh”.

@rojo It’s like I’m looking at the dark side of something I would utterly love. As my daughter would say “It’s a Happy House.”