you're home for the holidays: irritating relatives, enforced sing-alongs, and furtive nips of liquour when bringing out the trash

Walking down to Carmel Beach along Ocean Avenue, occasionally seeing Ralph Lauren in his car.

is the car plaid?

male relative to me, 7:15, first morning after i've arrived from los angeles: 'jet lag is a shysty ruse. go shovel snow and then complain about feeling like it's only four a.m.'

is the car plaid?

No, but if only. He's usually getting coffee or the like.

"If you think you're enlightened, spend some time with your family of origin"

!

lol remy is descended from hardmen

definitely, definitely adopted

during caroling last night i enforced the singing of all twelve verses of children go where i send thee

if someone gives you a gift and then turns to everyone in the room and says: "THERE IS A FUNNY STORY BEHIND THIS!", they are lying.

two days of shopping and cleaning in preparation for in-law family to arrive for the day of present giving and inane chatterboxing :-(((

I've been told that a relative of mine is giving me Taco Bell gift certificates for the third year in a row, despite the fact that I've previously made it clear that I don't have a car to go to Taco Bell, and that I don't really like Taco Bell. I'm already preparing my game face for the gifter/giftee interaction.

MY STEP-MOTHER'S MOTHER: "I was on the news once."
ME: "Oh, really? What for?"
MSMM: "You can probably guess what for" [nervous laughter]
ME: "Ha, no really. Did you rob a bank or something?"
MSMM: "We were on the news when my second husband was killed driving into a pine tree. I was unconscious for 45 minutes."
ME: "Oh, yeah. That."

followed by a nervous chuckle

This is the first Christmas ever in my life that I will not be hanging out with my family. Just me, the wife, her brother, and brother's wife 2,000 miles and three time zones away from my family and in-laws. I'm very excited about this.

My mother has had these '12 Days of Christmas' plates for years, and the annual tradition is that the plates are set face down at the table and when you sit down to eat, your 'number' is revealed. Then we all sing the goddam song (my dad videotapes it every year). There is lots of clamoring, trading of plates (everyone wants 11 or 12, as everyone but my little sidster and mother thinks this tradition is the pits)

I'm running out of funny ways to ruin it by inserting things about lepers and transvestites into the song

I will also expect many 'hot chocolate gift baskets,' socks, and possibly gift certificates to stores I never go to. Ho, ho, ho!

I'm looking at a $50 gift card to Chili's, Macaroni Grill, On the Border, Corner Bakery, Big bowl, or Maggiano's.

I can't fathom us ever using it.

It's rare that we go out to dinner anyway these days, but when we get the chance, it sure as hell ain't Chili's.

fare thee well

I'll trade you my Taco Bell Bux for Chili's gift certificate.

on a related note: holiday parental i.t. dept, reporting for duty (part 2)

i have been completely broke and have not yet bought 1 gift. i have come down with a nasty cold since arriving at my parents house. tried to drink it away last night but it didn't really work and now i feel worse.

local newspaper headline: "Yakult Drama"

i haven't been home for xmas in 10yrs, mostly because it's too much of a pain to get back there for just one day (which is all i get off). but this is actually a good thing: my mum's a pain in the ass, by older bro is a fuckface who i refuse to talk to, and my extended family are hicks.

this year i will be renting old favourite dvds, buying a ton of yum foodstuffs, and hanging out with my guy.

i also may get drunk of the bottle of mondoro asti my boss gave me for my birthday.

I will also expect many 'hot chocolate gift baskets,' socks, and possibly gift certificates to stores I never go to. Ho, ho, ho!

-- If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Saturday, 22 December 2007 19:16 (3 hours ago) Link

I actually think socks are a fine present, providing they're really nice ones. I'm frequently upgrading my sock collection. I love socks. I got my daughter-in-law three pairs of cashmere-blend polka-dot socks. Things could be MUCH MUCH worse, IACFTPWBAA.

i wish someone would buy me socks for xmas!! i really really need some, and i never have enough pairs! secret santa, if you are reading this and haven't got me a gift, now you know.

once again (third year running, woo) my parents and i are staying at home, and not even going to see relatives at all except for my childless aunt and uncle, who are both total nerds and give me $75 iTunes Store certificates on every special occasion. they are fucking great.

but when we used to see relatives, it was always a shitshow. my mom's family are all a bunch of redneck drunks and too-serious military men, and my dad's family are all super-WASP or super-tacky-Jews.

so yeah, my parents have been making wise decisions for a bit now.

NONSTOP LECTURES

I stopped at a bar and had a couple of drinks before the annual extended-family dinner/get together (where drinking in front of the Baptists would be frowned upon). It was weird sitting at a bar, drinking by myself, at 5 in the afternoon.

Also, the booze didn't last long enough to keep me from being miserable. Next year I'm bringing a flask.

cut your hair
buy new jeans
"but I'm 24 years old"

you're coming to church with us on sunday, right?
let me buy you some new jeans
do you want some more coffee?
yes, but do you want some more coffee?

a
agagh;asldkgfh

let me buy you some new jeans

^^ yes, this. or shoes, or sweatshirt, or coat. i am eternally too raggedy for my family.

i leave tomorrow morning for just five days... going to need to pick up some weed, definitely, and it's a good thing i can drink with my family or else i'd be much less good humoured. also planning on going to bed early and reading throughout my "vacation" unless i'm out with pals. loitering around at home, getting suckered into tedious domino games is UNACCEPTABLE. also good this year: bringing a laptop, but i don't think either of my parents has wifi.

no WiFi would mean no dice for me. i forced my parents to get it right before i took a semester off.

ha. at least they have wired innernets. my mom was dial up until about two years ago!

my parents are STILL on dial-up. it takes an average of about 5mins to load a page.

i'm going to watch approximately 9458 episodes of law & order.

and animal planet and the food network. oh god how i miss cable tv.

My parents had the internet and then gave it up about 6 months ago. I don't think my mom touched it once. Christmas would be way more fun if I get shitfaced like any other normal person at a family gathering, but instead it's a stone cold sober reflection on the glory of Jesus. No internet, no booze - I'm just going to bust through Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn and smirk at everyone.

our christmas dinner is veal ossu buco which i am very excited for. though i have never gotten into sucking out the marrow.

my housemate has cable, but my parents don't, which is probably for the best. today, i read all the back issues of Harper's and the New Yorker that I missed.

I'm heading off to my parents place interstate this evening for 3 days at home, which is a bit daft because neither of my brothers or any of their little kiddies will be in attendance; my nan had a stroke and has only just come out of hospital so is too sick to go anywhere, and me and my dad both lost our jobs a couple weeks ago so no one has any money.

Oh, and my b/f cant come with me so I'll be without him on xmas day.

Whee.

i was making muffins. dad came and pushed me out of the way to get to the dishwasher. i said 'hey, don't push' and he said 'buzz the hell off' and went in his room and slammed the door. mom came into the kitchen five minutes later and told me, very seriously, that i had offended my dad and that he didn't feel like seeing me right then. 'okay' i said. 'this is such a disappointment,' mom replied.

i am a barely-contained ball of punching

:-/

my parents, unable to fit both a turkey and much else into our tiny fridge, have turned an entire room of the house into some sort of cooling-plant. not going in there again. *sniffs, coughs, blows nose*

This thread is hilarious.

and also tragic

I am always amazed that you're on speaking terms with your family, remy, much less willing to visit them in person.

i know. and in spite of the way these threads make it seem, we are actually really close.

i’m obsessed

Awesome parenting (seriously). Glad I'm in the house on my own as otherwise I'd have to sit down to eat with a bunch of uptight people with the worry that I'll suddenly start laughing out loud to ASS GOBLIN.

Merry ass goblin to all!

Family waking up, prepping things in the kitchen, etc. Me being me I’m already showered and dressed and listening to Django Reinhardt doing a Christmas song.

Just decompressing after an intense month. I hung out with my brother last night and went to the movies. This morning I'm wrapping presents, making cards for my niece and nephew, getting ready for the family party. I want to squeeze in Rohmer's A Tale of Winter.

I think I scored the last box of Quality Street in the store. Also someone was leading a donkey down the high street. No Mary, no Joseph, no shepherds, no wise men, just a guy wearing regular clothes and a donkey.
Did you punch the donkey? Or are you not in Galway

Yesterday morning when our upstairs neighbor showered, water leaked from our bathroom doorframe and we could hear aggressive dripping inside the wall that separates the bedroom closet from the bathroom. The super is trying to get into their place to fix it but xmas so he hasn’t been able to catch them in.
This is about the time when he showers so I’m just sitting here in dread, listening for drips.
It’s like something from a Patrick McGrath novel.
Merry ass goblin

I'm not in Galway nor am I in a Scott Walker song. I hate it when you can hear water dripping and you know it's somewhere - like inside a wall - that you can't get to.

(insert foley of footsteps)

still waiting for coffee to finish

cleaned up two living room dog messes this morning so far

It's taken me until noon to get up and get going, just like any other day that I'm off. (I did do the usual pills for my husband and I and the usual morning chores--he's in the living room resting his back before he starts cooking dinner for tonight.) I'm not happy with this. I'm trying to psych myself up to call my mother and wish her a merry Christmas, and see if she got that fancy stand-up card I sent her. (It doesn't help that the holiday update that I posted to the Discord server that I help run reminded me of some bad memories.) Then, I'll be spending the rest of the day eating off of deli platters, posting holiday messages to various online communities, and catching up with laundry before I go back to work tomorrow.

I am making a salad and loaf of bread for our family dinner at my sister's house, and am on schedule. Salad is made and bread is in it's no labor wind-out.

Re: Lighter, maybe change it to SASS GOBLIN, empty it of butane, and give it back to her?

It’s Christmas, might as well go with MASS GOBLIN

nickn, I read your post as a "loaf of salad."

i watched its a wonderful life with my kids yesterday - we had to friggin' pay for the real version! all the streaming versions had fake synth music so stupid amazon was the only option - and now that i am older i am kinda into the nightmare jazzland that george runs through! it looks like a hopping town. violet gets busted which is too bad but that street is swinging! then he goes back to real life and stupid bing crosby movie is playing at the movie house. so boring. that movie is still good though. it hits all the buttons for a movie made to be rewatched. i hadn't seen it for years and years and so much of it was embedded in my brain already.

To watch IAWL before or after The Shop Around the Corner is to study how differently Jimmy Stewart can come apart depending on the scenario.

he's so amazing.

his hands are really long.

https://mediaproxy.salon.com/width/1200/https://media2.salon.com/2015/12/jimmy_stewart.jpg

that phone scene is so intense! erotic even. him smelling donna's hair. sheesh. HEE-HAW!

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/BKJGEE/its-a-wonderful-life-1946-donna-reed-james-stewart-iwl-024p-BKJGEE.jpg

To watch IAWL before or after The Shop Around the Corner is to study how differently Jimmy Stewart can come apart depending on the scenario.

Prewar/Postwar, basically.

Rescreened Shop... last night, and was astounded at how skinny he was back then.

Twas the night before Christmas
And no creature was squabblin’
Except under the stairs
Where I heard an ASS GOBLIN

rewatched Its A Wonderful Life this morning. i’m
always pre-emptively pissed off by Uncle Billy’s hijinks now. THIS IS YOUR FAULT YOU IDIOT MANCHILD. FUCK OFF WITH YR BIRDS.

This thread has kept me entertained today. Started feeling rough last night and have basically been in bed all day with the epic quease. Managed to squeeze some lamb into myself but still not up to it, really.

Just went downstairs to say goodbye to my folks and heard someone say 'how can we have a housing crisis when everywhere you look they're building?' To which someone replied 'they're coming in quicker than we can build'. Maybe raging sickness wasn't so bad after all.

Ach, Billy only has the job because George pities him but I can't help but be moved by his dithering stupidity.

<3

Got hit with a GI bug last night so I'm celebrating Christmas on the floor of my bathroom waiting for my body to finish turning itself inside out. Decision To Leave is the only thing holding my attention rn so I'm declaring it a christmas movie.

sending love and uh saltines & flat ginger ale for the recovery i guess xx

Now that my parents, my sister and my wife's parents all live within a few miles of us, we've taken on default holiday hosting. Managed a nice three hours or so today of presents and dinner, nobody got mad or was difficult despite assorted stresses. All quite nice, three generations together. The mini Yorkshire puddings popped up properly this time (they were flat at Thanksgiving, but I think I solved that). Food was good, my father-in-law brought good wine. It all felt a bit like Christmas as an exercise, but family rituals have some value just in doing them together.

aww

merry day to all

https://rukminim1.flixcart.com/image/300/300/xif0q/book/q/c/e/ass-goblin-original-imagh2yjfzfx3gbz.jpeg

there's a furtive nips 2, but i searched "home for the holidays" so didn't see it for my revive...

anyway, this year's tech support has been removing a swollen battery from the 2016 laptop. it'll just have to be plugged in from now until Microsoft renders it unusable because it won't run Windows 11.

they did actually go to buy a new one but came back with an ipad instead, see above. spent to much of yesterday trying to install a simple digital clock which will show both UK and NZ time but it's not showing any options from the app store, only the local ones.

in-laws has Its A Wonderful Life playing for xmas dinner so i’ve now watched it twice in one day <3

xxp I thought that was a photoshop but that colouring book is real!
https://www.amazon.pl/Ass-Goblin-Coloring-Horrible-Adults/dp/1690769572
(link to the Polish language version of Amazon for some reason - Google must have scanned my DNA when I searched for the image)

Reporting:
- First white Christmas in ages - kids could be pulled on the sledge through the garden
- We covered the aperitive and I improvised ham croissants, my brother brought nice burgundy wine, my sister dessert, and we had a proper three-generation gathering
- 92yo grandfather became drunk and peed himself - he had to be escorted to the bathroom and obviously did not manage the rest - my late grandmother hid her face in shame from wherever she is.
- My wife's niece spent 3 days with us over the weekend: her first time in Europe so we traveled around to the Christmas market, mountains, Matisse exhibition. Was very nice, we're expecting another friend in the coming days.

we had a marvelous christmas with one exception, i started drawing a bath and then our third called and i was so transfixed that i forgot about the bath and it kinda flooded the bathroom. BUT THANKFULLY the hole in the floor that has been exposed in the bathroom for a year and a half due to taking off a broken toilet from it and always meaning to but never replacing it meant that we could scoop all the water down the shit hamper hahaha so no harm done.

Petty arguments with mom xmas 2024:
1. Why does she want to put the red totebag on the passenger side back seat instead of the driver side backseat with her other totebags
2. Slicing vs peeling oranges - her sliced orange was more aesthetic than my peeled orange
3. Expectations of time taken for coffee consumption (i.e. when I say “let me finish my coffee first, then we can go”)
4. My cousin’s cat vs her twin brother’s baby - which is cuter?

Post the cats, I'm sure we can figure that one out

My folks get these round-robin letters from three different families every Christmas. They're photocopies - either of originally handwritten letters or printed documents - and must go to I guess 20 or 30 people? I can't fully explain the feeling they give me.

The mixture of self-dramatisation/grandiosity and soul-crushing banality gets me. It's just the reality of most lives, I guess, but 1) why share your gallstones, your sons' marriage problems, your vitamin D deficiency; 2) turn your afternoons watching the grandchildren put on puppet shows into something from a Trollope novel?

I'm friends with some of the children described in the letters and know how embarrassed they are to be described as 'leading up a global project' when, in reality, they're tending to spreadsheets; not to mention how much of an arsehole the letter-writer has been that year.

My favourite detail this year was how the husband from one family had had several health issues, and that his 'testicles had swollen to the size of a ballcock'.

Refer him to the gay thread.

i appear to be the only person in the family with an Amazon account. so can i order some things for them? last year it was inter-dental brushes, this year it's a replacement top for the kitchen tap which they seem to think will be a one-size-fits-all kind of deal and i think will be a mess of proprietary standards. "the top is 19mm, the bottom is 11mm"...

don't refer them to the gay thread

home for the holigays

i've been enjoying having my grown-ups home together. so nice to hang out with both of them.

we had a nice time yesterday hanging out with my cousins and their kids up the road in marlboro, vermont. it was fun. actually family fun. they are nice people.

my grown-ups:

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/471313304_10162727347667137_4535842009987839872_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=IWfhqp3CxPgQ7kNvgFEy_Ol&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AIpLqU9BuCrludRNvrMGe1Q&oh=00_AYAQZADBiH-fWlfAvACpbCCWBlQ2D1exOOEVO0vtySL9ng&oe=6774B838

Post the cats, I'm sure we can figure that one out

I’m laying in bed vaguely awake, chuckling about ASS GOBLIN

Gonna come back to finish reading the thread in a few hours

I don't want to help my mother-in-law hang Christmas lights. I want to sit around and eat candy.

Second Christmas in a row on my own and as was the case last year it's fucking glorious. Lunch was mini sausage rolls and battered onion rings (Co-Op own brand far superior to Sainsbury's) with instant gravy made from granules with a use-by date of March, followed by what was left of a tub of Wall's vanilla ice cream, all washed down with a can of Monster Ultra.

I had a tooth pulled on Monday which probably wasn't great timing if I wanted to enjoy the traditional food offerings of the season. Oh well, probably better to get it over with. The mashed potatoes were good.