Have Yourself A Merry Little One

    I hope all your Christmases and Hanukkahs were and are enjoyable! Welcome back, let's dive right in to what pissed me off this Christmas. Your first question is probably why I'm talking about Christmas when I've made no secret of my Jewish descent. I subscribe to whatever religious practices I want without the label. I like celebrating Christmas, so y'all can deal. Now, I'm sure you're now wondering what could possibly have pissed me off about such a happy time, and the offending party is closer than you or I might think. Family. You can't choose 'em, and you can't choose to ignore 'em.
    My wife and I made a last minute decree to not leave the house at all on Christmas. With the presents forgone, we decided to respond to her grandmother's guilt-ridden phone message asking us to Christmas dinner with her by ignoring her. In a stroke of honesty, we told my parents of this, and they immediately began in with the shame to goad us into dinner with them and my grandmother. "Or at least you could come down and talk with her for a while." My grandmother, by the by, was coming to my parents house for a traditional Hanukkah dinner scheduled for Christmas day.
    I rapidly grew weary in life, of the phrase "well it's family" or "well he's family" or "she's family" as if that is all I should need to go against my better judgement and my personal preferences. Throughout life the only family member I ever chose was my wife. Other than that, I'm stucm with and emberassing hodgepodge of people I don't see eye-to-eye with and who disapprove of me. Why should I sacrifice so much for a person who thinks so little of me? The moral of the story is that for coming down and chatting with my grandma, she gave us a Hanukkah card with $25 in it. That translates to each of us getting paid $12.50 for 45 minutes of awkward, pointless conversation in which both sides speak but not about each other. In my opinion, not worth it. Keep the card and the money. I'd rather have spent the time the way I wanted, with only my chosen family.