Oh my lord, I am suddenly so cranky I can barely stand myself.
Why, oh why did I have to attempt to shop for Christmas today? It just reminds me of one of the things that drives me utterly insane: Christmas with Esteban’s relatives on Christmas Eve.
No, not spending time with them, as they are, for the most part, lovely people. It’s just ridiculous, though, their little form of dysfunction (which, compared to my family, honestly barely merits even mentioning, but it’s so trivial it just drives me INSANE!) which they insist upon revisiting every year.
Here’s the deal: June comes from one of those huge ass families that farmer’s used to have in the earlier part of the century because children were free labor. Esteban’s Aunts and Uncles (ie. siblings of June and their spouses) actually comprised one quarter of our guest list for our wedding. We couldn’t even afford to invite all of his first cousins (ie. said sibling’s children) because they would have eclipsed the rest of the guest list (ie. Ward’s side of the family, my entire family, our friends and coworkers, etc).
So every Christmas Eve, part of that enormous family gets together. But here’s the kicker. Esteban’s Aunt Braggy lives in one of those itty bitty former farmhouses that were in Wisconsin when Christ was a choir boy. Back when people were small. Very small. Her family is huge… not in the multiple sense, but in the “Holy Shit They Done Grow Em Big O’er Dere!”. Farmer’s daughters ought not to marry farmer’s son, as they mate and spawn huge ass Amazon children. Their three daughters are all over six feet tall. Their son is well over six foot seven.
So about twenty or so huge people all stuff themselves into their 13×15 square foot living room and sit there awkwardly.
That’s not the insane part yet.
When no one can stand being squashed anymore and our bladders are about to burst (you see, you don’t get up because if you do, someone will steal your seat and then you will stand around in the narrow hallway that connects the living room to the kitchen, like the uncool waiting to get into an exclusive club), everyone gets up and gets into now-very-cold cars and treks to one of the cousin’s house.
Yes. The same people.
There are no new people at this house.
Yes, the cousin and her family all went to the first house. Yes, Aunt Braggy and her hydroponicly grown children go too.
Then we sprawl in the cousin’s living room, which is roughly three times the size of Aunt Braggy’s closet-like living quarters.
I don’t get it either.
After ten years, I’ve been able to gather this much: Aunt Braggy does not like the fact that her niece has a much nicer and much larger home than she does, thus she insists on pretending that her home is suited for such large gatherings.
One year, when her daughter purchased a new house, when it came time for us to trek to Esteban’s cousin’s house, Aunt Braggy declared that we all had to visit Amazon Daughter’s new house first. So she could show it off, you see.
Thus, in one night, three houses. Same people.
It’s enough to make me boycott Christmas. Esteban’s parents actually invented a Christmas tradition for us: instead of going to Aunt Braggy’s house for the entire time, Esteban and I go to Ward and June’s house for dinner and present exchanging… buying us precious hours in the comfort of a spacious environment.
God help us if some of that decrepit wiring in that tinderbox of a house ever picks December 24 to get sparky because I’m certain that the world would be without several gigantic twentysomethings. There’s no way we’d make it out alive.
I heard one of the daughter’s is pregnant, too. We’re going to have to grease up with Vasoline to fit in that living room if her family gets any bigger.
You think I’m making that up, don’t you. Below is a picture of me at my wedding, dancing with some of the boys. One is a husband of one of the daughters, the others are cousins.
I am five foot nine and had big hair. They make me look like a toddler. In case you’re wondering, the song we’re dancing to is SuperFreak…. strangely appropo, non?
“Now the bride will dance with any freakishly large genetic mutants”
