Bad Christmas

I wasn't really planning on writing anything until the new year. To start the year, and the blog, fresh with my New Years' Resolutions and a clean slate but this was one of the worst christmases ever and I need to vent. I like the holidays to the extent that I like the spirit, the lights, the brandied egg nog and cider, the crisp cool air, the smell of pine, decorated christmas trees, exchanging gifts and basically trying to be merry and bright. What I don't like about the holidays is actually being forced to spend christmas eve and christmas day with family...and there is of course New Year's Eve. Who likes spending it alone?! So this will be the 7th NYE I will spend alone or as a third wheel with friends. I usually wish really hard that Christmas Eve to New Years Day pass at light speed. It doesn't work.

And as much as I say I like the holidays, I become quite *Bah Humbug* about it all the closer and closer we get to Christmas Eve and become downright lethargic until New Years' Day. And there is a reason and I will be very blunt...I have the worst family dynamic ever. I have parents who have become so dependant on me that they may as well be my children. And considering I am 31, single, have no prospects and have to take care of 80 year old children, the *Bah Humbug* is so prevalent you may as well call me Elizabeth Scrooge. My brother has a few marbles loose and says the meanest, most offensive things, that the most joyous of days when you should put differences aside, turns into an all and out screaming match between oldest and youngest sibling. That left me leaving my parents house in a huff with screams and slamming doors and I drove home to my sanctuary. I so love my apartment...no family...just peace, quiet, a comfy bed and a box of kleenex. After lots of tears and anger, I called my mother and told her that was the last Christmas I will be spending at their house and that I didn't have any more to give.

My family is not a family and I've been taking too many insults from everyone for too long and I have reached my breaking point. I've been taken advantage of for too long and have older siblings that have left to claim their lives. They travel. They have their own family. They own property. They have their lives. Me? I'm still trying to piece mine together but have to constantly stop to take care of never-ending requests from my parents. But since I'm here, my siblings never step up and I have had it! And if I need to move to Seattle or Chicago or New York to get away from this responsibility and have my siblings realize how much work goes into taking care of something other than their own interests, I will do it. The eligible men pool in the Bay Area is stagnant anyways.

So now I am throwing around ideas for Christmas next year...Hawaii? Costa Rica? Mexico? And if worst comes to shove, I'll be adopted by a friend. If I learned anything this past weekend it's 1. that everyone has a breaking point and I have reached mine and 2. my friends and co-workers shined so much brighter this year than my family. The small tokens given to me by friends and coworkers were thought out and heart-felt. My family...money and gift cards every year. I can do without those. I'd rather have no money and be happy. It truly is the little things and those small gestures in life that really matter.

Ummm...Yea...

I'm alive.

Nothing horrible has happened.

Nothing exceptionally great has either.

Things have been so incredibly busy that it exhausts me to re-hash it...so I'm not telling you.

I don't see much free time for me between now and mid-January...I can't, can't wait until then.

I'm a little Bah Humbug but will probably feel better about that once I can actually get ornaments on my tree.

I am almost done with my project for my cousin. Pictures will be coming up soon...I am so proud of myself!

I've got New Year's Resolutions in the works...will share soon.

Hope all is well...