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My most memorable family-related Christmas disaster came courtesy of my mother-in-law, the very first year that my husband and I were married. She flew across the country to spend the holidays with us, and then proceeded to spend the entirety of her stay reminding me that I was in no way caring for my husband adequately. The nadir of whole experience came Christmas Day, after I had spent the day slaving over a turkey dinner. I had set the table, put out the food, poured champagne into everyone’s glasses and invited my mother-in-law to toast the meal. Which she did. She raised her glass and said, “to my son, for providing us with such a wonderful meal and making this a very merry Christmas.”
I still have not forgiven her for that.
We’ve had better Christmases since then. There’s been lots of love and laughter and merry-making and most holidays have turned out to be more fun than bitter. But still – if there’s a time of year when tensions are likely to run high – with the in-laws or, indeed, any family members – this is it.
Shonda of The Cowboy Chronicles is dealing with the tension by airing her grievances, in the spirit of Frank Costanza's Festivus:
Putting a bunch of genetically related people who can't freakin' stand each other and only manage to restrain from socking each other in the eye with a turkey drumstick because it would break poor ole Grammy's heart in the same room to trade notes over who's pulling down the biggest paycheck according the size of their wastefully wrapped gifts under the tree just makes perfect sense. As soon as the ribbons are untied and punches are flying, I'm sure Jesus is happy as a bride on her wedding day. Honestly, I don't know why we just don't start a new Christmas tradition of gouging out each other's eyes rather than turning the other cheek. That's the only thing missing.
In light of my obvious Bah Humbug spirit, Festivus clearly resonated with me. Festivus is packed full with much more reasonable customs and my favorite of them all is the "Airing of the Grievances."
(You can read her grievances here. You can also just do a tag search on #festivus in Twitter and you will be immediately plunged into the festival of grievances. I encourage you to share your own.)
Michelle of Michelle’s A Mom calls it the Christmas Crazy:
It started off with a stupid argument with my family (mom, sis and I) about going to see "The Nutcracker". I know. How could that possibly turn into an argument? Well, let's just chalk it up to Christmas Crazy. Then last night over dinner with MIL and family I got another taste.
It's as though all the joy and giving and wonderful things of the season have to be balanced somehow.... maybe that balance is the origin of the Christmas Crazy.
Amy at Bitchin’ Wives Club needed three posts to address her family's particular brand of Christmas Crazy (with one more still pending). Christmas, with all of its attendant family weirdness, is invariably, she says, “one of the highlights/lowlights of the year.”
Which I call understatement, but still: it kinda sums it up, no? Holidays with family can be the best of times and worst of times all in one go.
Try to focus on it being the best of times today and tomorrow and every holiday day, regardless of what you're celebrating. And then, when everybody's gone to sleep and you've fired up Twitter... AIR YOUR GRIEVANCES.
I will be.
Catherine blogs as Her Bad Mother, and is currently trying to figure out to make this whole 'he knows when you've been bad or good' scam work all year long, but, you know, without relying on that whole God thing.
