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For those of us who WISH we were spending XMas Day on our own. For idle hair-pulling and psychological masochism.

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11:44 / 29.12.07

Don't say that!

In my case Mice, it is for the best. I highly recommend it for those family members who are not just simply irritating, but abusive fucktards and those who may even border on this. Why take a chance? The Holidays have been nearly drama free this year, other than being told to leave the house with my son and then hearing about my mom gossiping about me to further her own agenda.

Distance...ahhh

00:10 / 30.12.07

Distance. Yay, indeed.

Well, I do quite like my family even if I don't always enjoy spending time with them. That being said, I'm leaving under a dark cloud tomorrow having set off the house-alarm failsafe and waking the neighbours. It's stopped ringing now but I am, nevertheless, in disgrace, feeling very glad that my sense of selfworth doesn't revolve around the opinion of my parents.

Other than that it's been lovely catching up. Especially with my sisters. And I'll probably been down here again in a couple of weeks after my sister has her kid. It's due on my birthday and a new niece or nephew would totally be the best present ever (although due dates are never reliable).

13:36 / 30.12.07

My in-laws decreed that we should present ourselves at their home on Christmas Day in order to eat with them (this in itself is painful - we’re veggies, they are not and will not cater for weirdoes like us). The reason for this? My husband’s mother is a home for dementia sufferers. For 364 days of the year she is ignored by my brother and sister in-law, whilst we take care of all of her affairs, visited twice a week etc. We’d called them prior to them collecting her from said home because she’d been ill when we visited on Christmas Eve and we weren’t sure that they should drag her out to their house for the festivities, and also that we would go over and see her at the home and could all meet there for an hour.

Naturally they didn’t listen. We arrived as commanded on Christmas morning to find her slumped on a settee a room away from the rest of the family, unable to sit up straight whilst the delightful Homer like bro-in-law slurped beer on his automatic reclining chair for lard arses and they all totally ignored her.

My husband was extremely distraught to find her in this condition, it transpires the home asked them to leave her there and it had taken thirty minutes to get her in the car but the fat goon had insisted that she ‘should be with family’. Yeah, the family who are otherwise conspicuously absent…

As they were all smashed we decided to take her home. My sister in law, who is a palliative care nurse and usually takes care of her toiletry needs (I can’t lift her as she’s physically about 6 stone and ten inches bigger than me), basically dumped her onto our car seat where she promptly evacuated her innards all over the cushion. S-I-L ran into house and shut door (to be fair, she's actually very sweet but completely under lard-arse's thumb). I had murderous thoughts. My poor husband became even more distressed.

Needless to say when we got home, after thoroughly cleansing the car, we locked the door, unplugged all phones, ate lots of pizza and opened several bottles of wine. My poor mum in law had to be hospitalised due to a raging chest infection.

Next year I’m booking a cottage on the Isle of Mull for a week, with views of nothing but black rocks and cold sea. Heaven.

16:38 / 30.12.07

I think it´s a good idea to bump this thread one month before christmas 2008, so people, who might have repressed their christmas 2007 memories, remember why it could be a good idea to celebrate the holidays without certain people.

16:24 / 24.11.08

Bumped for the reasons mentioned above. Do you really want to face the nightmare that is christmas again? Hide from you relatives and watch christmas movies like Dead End, Die Hard, Gremlins or The Ice Harvest instead.

Don´t say I didn´t warn you.

18:57 / 24.11.08

Oh come on guys; Christmas with the family is what low-level doses of LSD were invented for, surely?

19:15 / 24.11.08

Argh; my parents are trying to get me to bring more people to the house for Xmas, and specifically telling me to ask my flatmate. What's particularly horrible about this is that my flatmate's from Taiwan, only has somewhere to go if she's prepared to pay a huge plane fare, and may well like to come. However, my parents don't always get pronouns right, and there's *no way* I'd trust them to be around anyone who didn't know me years ago for several days. And I'm probably going to have to tell them that.

And oh yeah, Xmas with them anyway. That'll be fun.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

21:41 / 24.11.08

My mother's coming, but I've informed her that we are taking care of dinner (which will be baked salmon and other things), that other than her it will be found-family-only, and I think that should minimize the drama. There's one family function we have to go to up-island a few days before Christmas, but it's the relatively not insane extension of the family and the Accomplice is invited with me (as opposed to the actual family dinner with my in-town extended family, because we are teh gheighs).

That all said, I'm basically going to be meditating every spare second I can to relax myself while she's around.

21:46 / 24.11.08

Oh you poor chappy. As much as I love Christmas, I'm looking forward to the time when I get to spend it exactly as I like. I'm just glad (and thankful) that the compromises I have to deal with are, on the whole, okay.

13:03 / 25.11.08

I wouldn't cook baked salmon, if I were you.

It's just that I tried it once, and, er ... never to do it again

13:19 / 25.11.08

It was too weird, you know?

04:06 / 26.11.08

bake it wrapped in proscuttio, with a few herbs and a squidge of lime juice between...

my demanding lover made the grave error of simply asking what family xmas plans might be - in august - and now the whole family and her family, with its newly wedded brotherly disasters thrown in, are descending for several days; when all i'd hoped for was said d-l, dog and quiet bliss with the sound of champagne bubbles bubbling, found family popping by for icecream xmas pud (no cooking out of booze soaking the fruit!) and cricket on boxing day (sadly on teev, no chance to get to melbourne this year...

mum will smile too much and try to be helpful but rarely shut up, complain about dad and tell me ad infinitum about people i don't know and care less for, sisters will want entertaining and make snide remarks in private about mum harping on about dad and making me take sides and i'll be cooking for too many, worrying about everyone getting on and having the washing up and washing bedsheets and vacuuming to do... and not get to watch the cricket!

and i've still a month of worrying about it all before i get there - who brought this up?

04:09 / 26.11.08

of course, that's prosciutto...

...and a closed parentheses after 'this year...'

08:20 / 26.11.08

This Christmas, I've invited this wonderful Brazilian girl over from Germany to spend the festive season with my family. I've met her once before, and we got along great guns.

No-one in my family has ever brought in an outside influence to Christmas before, so I'm very interested as to how it's going to pan out.

16:28 / 26.11.08

In the festive season, there's a lot to be said for hiring an escort, certainly.

Just make sure she's got the script straight. It's so embarrassing when they make basic errors about one's personal details. I gather.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

16:57 / 26.11.08

How are you spending the holidays, Grandma? Staring blankly at a bottle of gin because your grandson forgot to give you vermouth with it?

Anna de Logardiere

19:17 / 26.11.08

Me and granny spend every christmas shooting the lights outside people's houses with our BB guns. They make a wonderful exploding noise and if you're really lucky you get some irate old folk trying to chase you down the street with their walking sticks. That's why granny has a motorised wheelchair these days.

08:02 / 27.11.08

Yeah. Although I am thinking of upgrading to a twelve bore this Christmas. It's not what I really want, but British society's still too ... repressed, I suppose, to deal with the idea of chairbound pensioners motoring around the place with proper, heavy weapons.

(Slightly depressed that I'm now in a wheelchair, but, oh well, I'll go with it, I guess.)

20:31 / 17.12.08

Just chipped a tooth for reason of chewing a paper clip.
I AM NOT STRESSED.

Also, I fancy TECHNO VIKING

Anna de Logardiere

20:47 / 17.12.08

Well you do only use it for criminal activity.

21:09 / 17.12.08

I've seen Techno Viking. I'd like to be the guy that supplies him with water bottles. How do I apply for that job?

01:17 / 18.12.08

I just think it's awe-inspiring that so many people can get together in the streets and groove like that.

It's like "Thriller."

Anna de Logardiere

13:47 / 18.12.08

I want to be a techno viking!

Thaddeus "B." Glands

13:48 / 19.12.08

I wish I were spending Christmas with Techno Viking. He'd make sure everyone was happy.

Anna de Logardiere

17:04 / 19.12.08

If you got sad he'd let you pull his beard.

17:53 / 19.12.08

All I want for Christmas is:
Mead,
Ecstasy Tablets,
An Axe,
Techno Viking.

trouble at bill

08:49 / 22.12.08

Am just about to head home for Xmas. May the Force be with me...

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

17:49 / 22.12.08

Good luck and godspeed.

Mum's in town, so she's calling me approximately once every ten minutes.

20:15 / 22.12.08

On Christmas day night, my friends and I put all our relatives back under their rocks and into their cool dark places, and go to Paul's house, where we raise a toast to petri dishes - on the grounds that if scientists get it right no-one will have family to deal with in the future.

To petri dishes! *raises glass*

14:43 / 26.12.08

I did spend Christmas on my own and it was quite nice really. I can recommend it.

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