Holidrama

So my sickness lead to me not going anywhere for Thanksgiving. I called my SIL and she was cool with it. She even brought me a plate of leftovers. I called my dad and told him I'd be absent as well and jokingly told him to make sure everyone knew I wasn't staying away because I was mad.

And I was joking . . . but we all know that in many cases, this is the very reason people aren't showing up at family events.

Of course, there are many reasons why people would stay away from their families.  No one wants to be around drunks, fundies, passive/aggressives, rapists, or assholes on the regular days, so why would you want to see them on holidays?  I don't think there is enough green bean casserole or pie in the world to justify being around those listed above.

In other cases though, people stay away from their families, their perfectly harmless families, just to be the ones to CAUSE the drama.  I think we all know people like this as well.  The frantic darlings who must, at all costs, cause scenes where ever they go.  They always have such great reasons for not showing up at events.

• "I'm not going.  Libby Anne looked at my funny last year."
• "I will not show up!  Grandma didn't compliment my gift."
• "Why would I let you see your kids?  You don't pay enough attention to me now that we're divorced."
• "Billyjack drank all the scotch and petted my dog."

You get the idea. Petty tidbits that lead to lifelong squabbles.  And what do people accomplish from this? What gain is there to be had when you war because someone looked at you or said something or didn't give you want you thought you needed?

Look, I get it. I have this second cousin who is a little kid. Whenever he sees me, he laughs and informs me that I'm fat.  On a good day, I blow this off. On the rest of the days, I either want to slap him or say things back that will scar him mentally for life. However, I refrain from this, because he is, after all, just some little kid.

Oh but look, I did just blog about it. Maybe I'm a frantic little drama queen after all.