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Afghanistan

Arabs

Do they think that all Muslims are Arabs?

The only shitty thing was my dad constantly making fun of my sister's bf (not present) for having feminine interests. He brought it up easily a dozen times. Good sign for me 👍

I got some legos though which has been cool.

My pet tortoise (who I have had since I was a small child) died which has been extremely sad, but that isn't really holiday related.

At the In-law's for Christmas this year. Its a 5 hour flight there. Its high altitude and dry as fuck, they have dogs and despite having dogs growing up I think I've developed an allergy to their dander or something. Between the sneezing and dry air my noes has been clotting the whole time. We're here for basically 1.5 weeks, staying in their very nice house. We have our own room, so do the kids, and our own bathroom. The trip has been a huge shock to both the kids and my routine, which has made us more irritable. The In-laws have had to work for most of the time, and it's been bumming my oldest out somewhat because she wants to spend time with grandma. When they are around grandma does pack the time with the kids. Even I'd it's just baking cookies (which my oldest loves to do). Grandpa, however, is you're typical man. He loves the kids, he's great with them, but he's mostly just hanging out in the couche playing phone games. He didn't even get my mother-in-law a Christmas gift, which is apparently typically. "I've given up in it." She told my wife.

While our routines have been totally fucked, it's like theirs can't be budged. They get cranky of they can't watch the local evening news and the nightly news. The news is so depressing and we never watch it at home. I had to deflect a lot of questions about "what's happening on the TV dada?".

Their house is so wildly hostile to kids too. Like zero consideration to what should and shouldn't be within reach. I have moved a handful of things thus far that could really break or fall in them and hurt them. They have a long staircase to the finished basement that we're blocking off with a large slab of cardboard to keep the youngest from yeeting himself down the stairs.

When we arrived grandma picked us up in this unreal Ford F series extended cab truck, but didn't have the car seats properly installed (this is the second time this has happened). She said she couldn't figure them out, and then tried to tell us "I don't think this truck can take car seats". I started to lose it a little when she said that, because it's clearly bullshit. I asked if she had the manuals, and she didn't. So I figured it out best I could. It's only the most important thing they needed to do. We also told them what car seats to get. We invested in car seats that should last us 10 years and grow with the kids. They swivel to make getting them out easy and to go from back facing to front facing. They're also really easy to install. They bought the cheapest car seats, two different kinds. One, the cup holders keep falling out. Found out it's because you have to screw them in from the underside. Contrast that with their brand new EV and this new truck that has to cost like $90k their new solar with a Tesla power wall, and their home that has appreciated to over 1mill and I'm just enraged by this car seat thing. I can tolerate so much, but this is beyond the pale for me. Its so fucking important.

And they are incredibly accomplished people. They do all their own renovations within reason. They are uncomfortably generous all the time. They helped us with home renovations that made our house a home. They pay for almost everything when we see them.

Me and my wife always end up going on little rants about her parents behavior. Its just so baffling. There is so much more I could say.

At my parents house, it's like they understand that it's their turn to have eyes on the kids. If my kids wanted to go out side and play in the yard, both my parents jump to take them outside. They are always getting up to see where our youngest is wondering off to. We always feel like we can just relax when were there. That hasn't been the case here.

Don't get it twisted, the kids are having a great time, and this is just a vent post. We've done a lot if cool and fun stuff. It's just also not been very relaxing.

My father in law bought me a camo "Harris Walz" hat. I don't know why.

Last time I saw him we got into an argument about the genocide in Palestine, so probably he thinks I'm a Democrat. I think it's maybe a subtle jab about them losing, but he has in the past claimed to be a Democrat, despite vocally hating every Democrat besides Biden since I've known him. He had a little smirk when I opened it, so I'm sure he thinks it's some kind of dig.

I've been wearing it around the house and my partner laughs their ass off every time. So I'm getting more use out of it than the usual trash he gives me.

Someone got my sibling this book about "longtermism." I warned them that it might be a little fashy.

I took some Xanax because my partner’s family is A LOT, I love most of them but it’s a four hour Christmas with many many very drunk people and I had a panic attack a few years ago at their Christmas.

It went okay. I drove so my partner could have heaps of wine, because they feel the same way about their fam as I do. Nobody said anything terrible, nobody talked about politics.

Their brother is now exhibiting very concerning behaviors re: his mental health. He’s convinced he has a dog hair in his throat (no dogs to be found) and constantly leaves to the bathroom to check on it. He thinks he’s being poisoned by someone, and that many foods at the supermarket have poison in them. He asked if he was breathing at the dinner table and his sister told him he’s going to be okay. His face was red and someone asked him if he needed to step outside (it was very warm in the house) and he said “I can’t, I’ll never come back.” He thinks the CIA is watching him. Meds aren’t helping… but he refuses to try antipsychotics.

I just heard from a 3rd party that one of my sister's been complaining that pride month is disrespectful to US troops

We don't live in the US and half of the family is gay

On the other hand I gave stacks of antifascist stickers to my other sisters and they loved the Palestine stickers with butterflies on them so I guess it's a give and take

CW brief mention of sexual violence

My aunt got drunk (usual) and that means she has to strenuously defend something controversial. This year she is defending this guy who apparently

I just got drunk and cuddled my bf half asleep while he called one of my cousins stupid in some argument lol

Libs and chud family members are just different levels of nauseating

Libs: talk about how concerned they are about the US turning into an oligarchy

Chuds: glorifying generational wealth and small business owners at every corner

My brother and I try to talk class consciousness with my dad, and he goes straight into “why did Biden let all those immigrants in?” 🙃

Spent 6 of the last 10 Christmases alone. 2 were with religious freaks. I got screamed at one in 2015.

Can't wait to move. Oh my God I can't wait to move.

I don't see my family often, not that I've had issues with them, but we just don't contact ourselves much? But we're happy to see each others.

But I worry for one of my older brother, he was prompt to bursts of "opposition/anger" in the past, but yesterday he was kinda unhinged. He's a sort of a doomer with some notion of class struggle, but where everyone else is stupid and doesn't see the big picture. Every interactions we had in the group, he had to interject and give input of some kind where everything is bad and stupid and everything. He doesn't seem to enjoy himself at all, just some kind of mad.

He lives with my younger brother and his long lasting SO, but it feels like he's more and more disconnected.

We don't do emotional stuff really good in the family, but I feel like I have to step up and say I'm worried about his current state of things. I've always been seen as the one who can reach out to him and somewhat reason with him. But I must admit that I didn't do to well too with expressing emotional stuff. I've been struggling with mental health a lot in the past and tried to seek help quite a few times (it is now being managed pretty well). I feel like it would help him too, somewhat to help him manage his what I feel perpetual anger, but I doubt that he would take others perception well to start such a trip.

Anyway, I restarted playing online games with him, I'll try to get a moment to really to him about my worries.

Even though all of that, I had a good time, I wish you all the same!

I didn’t spend Christmas with family. Instead I got dolled up with a cute pink/blue/purple wig and pretty blue lipstick and drank cider and watched stuff on hextube and hung out in tracha and also spent time with my pup. It was great.

It was just my grandparents and my folks, and politics thankfully never got brought up.

They actually kind of liked my vegan Pizzelles: My Pizzelle recipe is officially Italian grandmother approved

Christmas eve however I spent with my mom's side, which is pretty WASPy. To add insult to injury I'm in a bad spot in my life: I lost my job and have been unemployed for a good while and haven't gotten any attention from anyone and my cousin was there. He's a good guy but I'm going to fully admit it: I'm jealous of him. I don't blame him for it one bit, like I'm happy for him. However, it's just a huge punch in the gut to be doubly reminded of my inferiority. Obviously I chatted and all, but I still feel like an asshole for feeling jealous.

Terrible. TLDR/CW: Drugs, suicide, abuse, and so on. I'm sort of writing this as a recollection of events so I don't forget, but also because this is a nice place to rant.

I spend my Christmas's with my mother alone every year now. We used to do big family Christmases, but she's now fallen out with the whole family, and many of them are no contact with her.

I went big on the presents - within my means, but sort of expensive. Just thoughtful and well picked stuff, some from her wishlist, some from my interpretation of it. They were wrapped and under the tree. I even added a couple origami figures - of an Oscar's award, and a mini book (related to the theme of her gifts).

Christmas eve, my mum's being a general energy vampire, but I figure she's just tired and will perk up. For the past 3 years since my sister cut her out, she's been a total mess, becoming almost intolerable. In 3 years she's learnt nothing. We have the same conversations about the situation every time. It's exhausting. She's also 'attempted suicide' every 4 months since, and pursued the Dignitas assisted suicide program. I am the one who has to deal with these moments. The last one, she said she tried to gas herself, and knocked the dogs unconscious. (She often weaponises the dogs, because she knows I care about them)

Christmas day comes. I wake up in the morning at 10AM and wake her up, as is often the case. She opens her eyes and says she hasn't wrapped my presents yet and needs to do it now.

I felt a bit hard done by the lack of effort, but I make coffee, and then I head upstairs to kill time. I hopped on the new Fortnite mode. Absolutely pasted some kids who probably got their first ever console for Christmas. I'm talking nasty 2008 style quickscopes. Bloodbath.

I go back down and we do presents. She got me some bits and bobs. I get a couple of the things I asked for. I mean hey, I'm nearly 24, what can I expect. It was an alright haul. Maybe a bit impersonal, but perfectly practical.

I say we should walk the dogs. She says 'in a bit'. I wait. I say we should walk the dogs. She says 'in a bit'. I wait. And again. Eventually I say I'll just go walk the dogs.

I go walk the dogs, and since my mum's not there, I go visit my aunt and cousin for a tea. I'm gone a good two hours. Then I walk back. Mum's still on the sofa. I half expected that she might've started the Christmas lunch (we were just going to have a good steak, because a whole chicken is a bit much for two people). She says she'll do the Christmas lunch later. For dinner. I kill a bit more time pottering about. We do a crossword. A read a bit of a book. Somehow it's about 6pm already.

She says she can't be bothered to make the dinner and asks if the oven-cook lasagna is alright. I say yes, that's fine. It was fine, really, though I wish she would've said sooner, and not kept my hopes up. I put the lasagne in the oven.

She asks if I want a drink. I say not really. She says 'go on'. I say I'll pass. She says 'go on'. I say I just don't really like the feeling of one drink. Three's fine if I'm in the mood for it, but I'm not. One drink feels like the worst of all worlds. She pours two drinks, and asks me to at least cheers her. I cheers, and I have a sip. That'll be that.

Then she says she's got some drugs in the car. 'Shall I go get them?'. I say 'no, don't be weird'. She laughs and goes and gets the drugs. She comes back and asks me to do a line with her. I say no, of course. (Not that I don't do drugs, but I don't like any of the white powders, and I don't like doing drugs with my mum.) She says she doesn't even know what it is, so she wants me to try some. I say no, over and over. Then she keeps pressing it, asking it in the way you'd ask someone to have a chocolate. 'Oh, go on!!! You know you want to!!!'. For a moment, the absurdity of the situation makes me laugh a bit. I'm telling her no, but I can't stop my giggle as a say it. But it's an uncomfortable giggle.

As she racks up two lines on a Christmas paper plate, I realize that I need to get serious. My tone changes. I tell her that I'm being serious, in the most sincere terms possible, and that it's uncomfortable, and weird. She keeps asking. I keep saying that I'm being serious. She takes a dab of the unknown drugs on her finger and noses it. She then asks me to do the same. At this point, I tell her to fuck off. I don't think I've ever told her to do that before, and especially not with the tone I'm now using. Seriously. Fuck off. Leave it. Leave me alone. Would you fuck off. I'm not joking at all. Do you get that? I'm not joking, this isn't funny. I'm not laughing. You need to stop. She keeps on going and going, taking a few more bumps of the stuff, describing it, asking me what I think it is.

I stand up. 'Fuck this'. I don't really know where i was planning on going next. I did a lap around the kitchen counter, fiddling a couple things on the way. I come back round, and she asks why I think it's weird. Why I'm annoyed, and so on. I say it's because I said no 50 times and told her it was uncomfortable, and yet she carried on.

She is unrepentant. Does her classic thing of asking 'but why is that bad?'.

So I go there. I say 'if this is how you're running the rest of your interactions with people, no wonder... ... Uh...'

I overstepped the line. I was going to say no wonder everyone cuts you out. And she knew that. And I meant it. And I didn't just say it because I felt a need to upset her. It's because it's such a classic thing she's done to these people, and I've bitten my tongue for too long. This was the perfect example.

Well, that really does it. She starts crying. The same conversation we always have. Again. I won't go into it. It gets to the usual point where she says she can't take another day and will kill herself. She asks for my blessing to end it all.

And you know what? Not today. If she'd been pleasant all day I wouldn't have done what I did next. She pushed me. So I brought it back round to Dignitas and assisted suicide. I ask around it. I'm subtly digging for information. She says they're holding 10 grand of hers, and that all she needs is some doctors approval notes. And a person to accompany her at the end.

I say:

Show me the transaction.

Show me the receipt. Show me any notion of proof.

She blabs with various excuses, that are winding in all different directions, like a writhing ball of hagfish.

My alarm goes off. Lasagna is ready.

I take it out the oven. I plate it up. It's quiet for a moment. We are both reordering our thoughts, like armies in-between waves of a long siege. Some words are exchanged. She monologues her usual monologue about how my sister has destroyed her.

I change tack. I say that I can't hold it back anymore. I need to be honest that I don't believe her. If I'm going to help her, I need fully honesty and openness. I need to see proof of the dignitas transaction. She says fine. And starts to make more excuses. And says not today, but she'll find it.

We eat lasagna and decompress. I take the dogs on a long walk. I research the dignitas process a bit. Nothing lines up. It's all bullshit. I knew it was.

I get back. Ring the bell. She opens the door, crying. She tells me she's considering killing herself tonight, and leaving a note on the door saying 'dont come in'.

'Right.'

She apologises for the evenings happenings.

I say it's fine. I go upstairs to go to bed. I play one more game of Fortnite. It was unsatisfying.

Merry Christmas.

My in-laws are insufferable codependent Puritan shitheads and I hate exposing my kid to their derangement, if only for two or three days a year.

Our Christmas is a 3 day event starting on the 23rd. We do Christmas on the 24th and we just hang out and play games on actual Christmas. I spend most of the time heavily masking or dissociating but this time I was coming back from an autistic meltdown/shutdown so I mostly just scrolled on my phone and avoided people.

We played Trivial Pursuit since it's a yearly tradition and a question came up about "most trusted news anchor" and the answer was John Stewart. My partner's aunt said "Ewww yuck" or something like that but she gets her news from Fox and Newsmax anyway so not surprising. But that was probably the only real thing that got brought up.

They played Chameleon after and got really fucking loud to the point that I ended up putting my Loops in and signaled to my partner that I was overstimulated and it was time to head home.

Constant deadnaming and misgendering from my partners parents, like to the point of deadnaming me literally every sentence like they were trying to trigger me or something. I took the opportunity to share my geopolitics opinions all visit and shit talk America nonstop to rage bait them, and to chew up time and keep them occupied. We only stuck around for 2 hours.

My partners sister was horrified at how bigoted they were being and spoke up, getting kicked out only after we had left. (she ended up getting a hotel room). This is in a blue state, they both voted Biden in 2020.

Living on the other side of the country to everyone I'm related to pays dividends once again.

Of course there is the downside of massive loneliness, but hey, you win some you lose some.

I hate my dad's anti China brainworms and general disingenuous edgelordism (he's an old serious union guy which makes it more heartbreaking). He also went on an anti Palestinian protester rant which is irritating because I know he is quite committedly pro Palestine.

my mum had a nervous breakdown and started ranting about how we have abandoned her alone (we have not) because I told her I needed 10 min to silently decompress after taking too many gigs and getting 6 hours sleep in 72 hours.

My brother immediately started yelling and is also having an extended work related mental health decline. And it eventually degraded into a merciful sullen silence until non-inner-family members arrived.

That said this is as bad as my family gets which means we're more or less okay.