December 25 - Family with a side of Turkey.

Merry Christmas one and all. Welcome to my not-so-special christmas day blog.

As some of my more frequent readers will know, I have spent the last 2 months in toronto mostly alone. Having very few friends it meant that, other than work, I spent most of my time on my own. Going from a solo existence to being dropped right in the active battle field of the "family christmas" is quite a switch. Have you seen Castaway? The film where Tom Hanks is stuck on a desert Island? SPOILER ALERT. He gets rescued. Towards the end of the movie there is a scene of of him standing at a table full of seafood after a life time of catching his own fish on an island. There is a surreal moment he has where he just seems to think... what the hell is going on right now?

My mother and I made our way to my niece's house for christmas dinner. We arrived at 4pm after my brother picked us up and after we made a brief stop to pick up my... i dont know... nephew in-law? My niece's husband's cousin is who we picked up. Turns out, she is a stripper. Now, she didnt tell me this but it was implied and when she said that tomorrow she was in town to work at a strip club, I used my natural skills akin to the likes of the great Sherlock, and broke the case!

The meal was wonderful, the company was nice, and i... having not really chatted with people in two months, didnt have much to say. And who, of our 8 person family dinner was the one to snap and make things awkward for everybody? Thats right faithful readers... it was me. It had been brought up about an hour before we left that my brother would be giving us a ride back into town, but without mention of anything it turned out that my nieces husband would be giving us a ride even though he had been complaining about his sore ankle and how tired he was all night. After my mom made a comment about how she wanted my brother to give her a ride because she trusted him more, well then let the GAMES BEGIN. Nobody said how they felt, nobody was blunt or honest, and if somebody had just explained why he would be driving instead of my brother, it would have been fine. But the whispers, the eye rolls and what I felt was passive aggressive behavior got to me. I marched up the stairs to say I didnt appreciate it and if there was an issue we could take a cab. I dont mean to inconvenience people and there was no reason not to deal with it. Did I need to blow up? No. Do I feel bad that I did? no.. not really. I was upset and I felt, and feel, that it was justified. So there we go. Will I hold a grudge? no. Am I over it? yea I am. I began the day with my girlfriends family and their awkward passive aggressive christmas, and ended the day with MY family's passive aggressive christmas. My niece, who was and still is angry with me, informed me that people were just upset by what had gone on and were not in fact passive aggressive about it, so... I may be wrong.

As I dont believe in the existence of christ as a lord, and I dont care for group events or celebrations where you are forced to give gifts... you can imagine that Christmas is not my favorite time of the year. Dont get me wrong, I love the feeling, I love the lights and the music but it seems so unnatural for me for people to force themselves into a room to eat a dead bird and pretend to get along. That is not to say that my family pretends to get along, in fact most of the time we get along wonderfully. I just mean in general, not any family specifically.

I wasn't going to write about what an awkward day I had because I worried that somebody I spoke about might read it, but like on this blog, I try to be as open and honest as I can be in real life. I told people how I felt, and now they know. Is it right that I air my private things in public? I dont know. There will be things I dont talk about because people dont need to know... but a strange family day? That seems okay to me. That time I shot a man? I can keep that a secret.

Tomorrow I get to go 2 hours north to meet and spend time with my girlfriends family. I dont know who they are and I have never met them... so we shall see... and I suppose you will find out tomorrow!

Thanks for reading and happy holidays!