to have reverted to unconstructive loathing of my family, instead of the serenity i had hoped for?

[Anna1976]

i was sitting in church (singing in the choir) the other day, enjoying the whole feeling of the season, that many of us can find a bit of hope and joy if we probe hard enough into ourselves to be thankful for what we've got, despite all the year's feelings of "soon will come the cross" sadness and worry (much of it particularly obvious in the number of death notices every week in a congregation where the average age must be 85).

I resolved to carry the feelings that It Really Is All All Right back to my homeland for Christmas.

But in the glaring heat of the weather and the glaring blaze of Mum's pointless negative cattiness, Dad's spineless agreeing with her and vicious bitchiness, my Mum and my sister going on like selfish princesses, BIL being a selfish lazy sod, niece being a total brat, etc...... I seem to have lost the feeling that it really all is all right. I'm trying to make excuses related to their evident inability to read people, their evident alexithymia - but actually it all just looks like a mixture of selfishness and affluenza. The knot of worry in my stomach just grows and grows - they're vile now, what will they be like as they get less able to cope?

Does anyone else hate Christmas this much?

[mumblechum1]

No. Because we don't see our families at Christmas.

I highly recommend that you don't see yours next year.

[Methe]

No. Because my family are nice.

[underbeneathsiesthemistletoe]

I agree mumble. You can chose not to engage, and have fun instead Anna.
Maybe go somewhere yourselves next year?

[mumblechum1]

I'm kind of looking forward to ds going to Uni in a couple of years as he's likely to be off doing his own thing at Christmas and we'll go on a shagathon holiday to the Seychelles or somewhere.

[Anna1976]

Sounds completely awesome, Mumblechum. I do have the added slight complication that DP and I come from the same country and he utterly adores his family, so there's considerable pressure to come back here every Christmas. I'd have successfully opted out of Christmas (other than church choir stuff) years ago otherwise. Would far rather spend it in a homeless shelter/ old folks' home chatting to people, than in the midst of this kind of affluenza.

[runningwilde]

If that is something you want to do then why not alternate years when you go back? Or volunteer at other times if you really feel you can't?
I too find it hard to bite my Tongue with some family members but I know I should, a lot lot more than I do. Famililes can be hard work!

[Anna1976]

I do do it at other times (local Anglicare things), it's specifically Christmas that I'd like to avoid, though. I do usually only see my family once a year (this year was a bit of a corker - 4 times, argh) so I think that if I'm being charitable and kind to others, I should really be charitable and kind to this lot too, and accept that their lives aren't as happy as mine (largely down to their interpretations of things that would make other people perfectly content), and shut up about my own reaction to them.

MN is my only outlet on this - DP really doesn't understand loony families at all, since his family is about as perfect as you can get (they're one generation in either direction from loony, i suspect - parents are ultra-nice because their parents were bonkers; the kids of our generation will be blinkered and spoilt because everything is too easy and nothing is being explained about why it's so easy).