Who knew Christmas could actually suck?

When I was young, if someone would have asked me if Christmas sucked I would have told them no. I would have said something along the lines of, “You just don’t have any idea what Christmas is really about, do you?” As if anyone in the world could actually be serious if they said, “Humbug”. How could Christmas, a day of remembering Christ’s birth, suck?

Christmas’ like todays remind me that I no longer live in a bubble. I no longer live in a place where at least a few things could get screwed up, where somethings could just not be wrong. I wake up around 10:30 and head downstairs to hang out with the family. I sit down no the couch, take a deep breath, under that tree is a few gifts for me. We sit around for a while just waiting. I grab my stocking and start pulling a few things out. I pull out a rubber chicken, an atomic alarm clock, and a gift card to Starbuck’s. You may say, “Well, that isn’t too bad. At least the chicken is kinda funny.” When I was a kid (read that all years prior to this year) it was a tradition to get a flashlight in your stocking. When we were kids, my parents used to put it on the foot of our beds and we would wake up at like 4 am or so and and pull out the contents of the stocking. My parents used to put the flashlight at the top, complete with batteries, ready to roll, so you could see what you got. Last year there were no batteries and it was at the bottom. This year, no flashlight. And so begins the long list of things that just went wrong. A flashlight was always something you could count on getting. It may seem small, but it was, in retrospect, a sign that somethings always stayed the same.

We continue eating cinnamon rolls and drinking coffee (at least 1 thing was going right) and then start opening gifts. The problem with gifts is that my mom isn’t really thoughtful, she wants to preach at you with those gifts. She’ll get things that refer to things in your life she disagrees with. Last year all she would take about was how I didn’t spend enough time at home, that I wasn’t taking care of myself and how all my priorities were messed up. What do I get? A plaque talking about keeping my focus on family, my health and my priorities. The year before I got a book on teenage boy’s stuggles with sex. I was 19. What do you think she thought I needed? I needed a book about how teenage boys have trouble with sex…

So this year, what do I get? I get a 6×9 foot fleece blanket (which was pretty cool), a huge keychain watch (because I don’t wear a watch… any idea what that was for?), a pen/journal thing with a bunch of Christ’s names on it (cool, but I’m not the sure to carry around a pen with that on it let alone a journal), a cheesy Christian hoodie (one of those ones that when you see someone wearing, you seriously question if their witness is on their hoodie or in their life), and a black shirt about “meddling in the affairs of dragons” (I havn’t worn a black shirt in almost a year for a reason). So I move on to my dad’s presents and I get one of those notebooks with the rubber band holding it closed (like the one on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, very cool) and a map of the UK. The notebook is the coolest and the thing I will probably end up using the most and I got it from my dad who I see something like once every 5 months or so.

So we move on through the day and no matter what I do, no one in my family will give me ANY respect. It’s like I’m a freakin’ doormat or something. Dinner finishes and we sit down and pretty soon all my brothers start in on me about how when they were my age, they were out living on their own, that my trip to the UK was irresponsible and stupid. My oldest brother spent $9000 on a ring for a girl that left him less then a year later for another guy and kept coming back for almost 3 years asking him to bail her out of something or give her money. My second oldest brother was forced into learning to drive his car (which was a 5 speed) during Christmas break because my dad wouldn’t take him to college and asked not to return for his second semester as a freshman because his GPA was around .30. My next oldest brother is 23 living at home because he can’t get his boss to give him enough money, or pay him for what he actually does at his job.
And I’m irresponsible. I’m stupid for leaving everything for a 6 month missions trip. I have never once talked bad about any of them. I have not once said they screwed up, they did it wrong and all I get is crap.

Damn it, what the hell is wrong with this family?
I know, this is really emo and I am normally very anti-emo. But I don’t freaking care.
That return flight from the UK is looking less and less appealing.

~ by Alex W. on December 25, 2006.