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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Afghanistan

Arabs

Do they think that all Muslims are Arabs?

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.

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.