Christmas Eve

Is this true about your family: would you spend Christmas with them if you had the choice?  Or, to put it another way, do you feel an obligation to be with your family during the holidays, rather than a need & affection?

I won't be spending Christmas with my family.  I haven't for a long time.  I think the last time I did, I realized that I just sat there getting drunk while people I didn't really know very well exchanged gifts.  As lonesome as it might have been being alone on Christmas, I was far lonelier among family (& probably drunker).

Being in Kentucky is a good excuse not to make it down to Dallas for the holiday, as well as being in charge of seven pets while the wife visits with her mother & sisters in California.  But I think I'd make some excuse in any event.  I long before stopped going home for Thanksgiving since, as a vegetarian, the holiday was already going to be unpleasant, but just sitting there while half the family shoved dead animal in their mouths & then spent the rest of the time yelling at a television didn't seem like it was worth the drive from Austin.

Christmas was something a little harder to give up, although probably 75% of that was my mother acting sad that I wasn't there.  I have tried to explain to her why it became no fun for me, but she's more driven by the obligation than the affection, I think.  (Though it seems unfair to say so.)

(25% was the romance of the holidays.  Also, I'll bet, getting presents was in there somewhere too.)

I keep harping on this, & I apologize, but 'tis the season.  I just don't think my siblings really want to spend any time together.  If they did, wouldn't they do so outside of mandated holidays?  Because they just don't.  Every obligatory gathering feels so strangely artificial.  Thinking about this reminded me of something from my childhood.

It seemed like every damn weekend there was some family get-together, especially in the summer, where there'd be a cookout.  Most of these - probably nine out of ten - happened at my oldest sister's house.  She had apparently decided that it was part of her responsibilities to bring family over to hang out.  I remember these mainly from my teenage years - before she & her husband moved back from out of state, the left-behind siblings simply didn't get together.  If I saw my older brothers, it was usually because my mother was making them take me somewhere.  (My other sister, who is six years older than I am, was my little brother & my de facto babysitter, so she had to put up with us most of the time.)

One footnote: my oldest brother, who is eighteen years older than I am, was out of the house & married before I became aware of my surroundings & started stumbling toward personhood.  I hardly saw him at all during my childhood; if I did see him, he was visiting my mother, or my mother was dragging me along to visit him.  As far as I can remember, he was never drafted to take me or my little brother to school, or wherever, as my other two older brothers were.  At some point during my middle school years, my oldest brother's marriage fell apart, & he moved in with us for a time, but we didn't connect.  Again, there wasn't much interest.

& jumping from that footnote that's not a footnote: that's the thing - I don't think any of us - any of my siblings - feel any sort of connection with one another.  I'm not sure why.  Well, I have theories, but I think I need to gather more evidence before I throw out a hypothesis.

To return to a point I was tripping around: my oldest sister (& her husband) threw these shindigs, & the siblings came.  I think my brothers came because my mother was there.  I think they felt an obligation.  There was basketball played & animal cooked & even (sometimes) alcohol consumed.  The nieces & nephews were young & they swam & played & cried.  As I grew older, I came to hate these gatherings.  Not because of the cooked dead animals - I hadn't converted yet - but because I simply didn't have anything in common with any member of my family.  I didn't want to play basketball or swim in an aboveground pool.  I didn't want to waste an afternoon that could've been spent reading or listening to music or (later) spending time with my best friend.

At the risk of sounding whiny, however, I must note: though I felt I had nothing in common with my siblings, they concurred.  They made zero effort to engage with me in any way.  Honestly, when I see siblings who are close, I am baffled by it.  They don't call you "weirdo" & "fag" behind your back because you don't like the same things they do?  They genuinely like you & want to know what your interests are?  That, it seems to me, is as unbelievable as unicorns.

So tonight most of the family is gathering at one sibling's house for Christmas Eve, where gifts will be exchanged & lots of dead animal consumed.  I think only one of my siblings-in-law drinks - but perhaps there'll be wine for my mother.  At some point, my mother will call & try to pass me around (on the phone), & I'll be tempted to take the call, if only for the point it makes: my siblings & their children (my nephews & nieces) will only talk to me when my mother makes them feel obligated.

I envy you if you're spending time with family whom you truly like & feel close to.  With the exception of my sisters, with whom I became friends in adulthood, I don't have that, & I wonder what it feels like.  & I wonder, if I could find out why my family is the way it is, could I change it?

Because surely there's a part of me, more like them than I ever wanted to admit, that perpetuates this too.  Would it be worth changing myself to try to change the family dynamic?