Ho, ho, ho.

It comes once a year and always heralds some kind of pretense. Familial loyalty when, more often, no one gets along. Cheer, when usually, families are lucky to pull the teenager from his fortress of solitude.

I can't be part of the pretenses anymore.

Not because it's impossible. I'm still a fairly decent actor, despite not having actually performed on a stage in a number of years. It's one of those things that never leaves you, like a virus you enjoy incubating, but this Christmas, too much has happened for me to really let myself fall under the nationwide spell.

We spend the holidays with my mother's sister-- my aunt, for those of you don't pick up on sarcastic hyperbole. It's a quiet affair, usually. We exchange gifts on Christmas Eve and then have a holiday dinner on Christmas Day. Polite chit-chat is exchanged before the wine fills everyone's cups, and then the passive aggression kicks into full gear. So, in summary, there are approximately 8 minutes of polite chit-chat.

Generally, I can dodge the verbal bullets my mother's sister's husband (my uncle, again, for the hyperbole impaired) shoots at me from across the room, but without that nice blanket of euphoric belonging, I started metaphorically bleeding, badly. That, or he was just really, really good with his aim this year.

Gems like:
"Yea. I can't wait to have grandkids. What about you, Cath? *looks at me* Oh. Right."
and
"I won't feel safe until Obama's out of office. Remember when everyone minded his and her own business? I wouldn't have liked the air force today, I don't think."
and
"Do you even know where the battery is in a car, Shawon? You know. The little black box with a red thing poking out of it when you open the hood? Oops, gave it away!"

sort of hit home. Then again, I wasn't visited by the wine fairy very often, either, so I didn't have that pasted-on haze only wine can provide.

Then the homey tour of the museum started. My cousins' beautiful artwork, all framed and hung up throughout the house, required a ten minute explanation and a thorough walk-through from their proud daddy. Praise and accolades aside, I learned all about how magnificent they are and how proud he is of their accomplishments. I was sincerely impressed, and I'm actually sorry about my reaction-- I was immediately turned off and wanted to leave.

Not because I disagree with him. Their art really is incredible, and I'm proud to call them my family. I wanted to leave because my parents don't do that. They can't. The writing I bring home and purposefully show to them is read, smiled at, and then dismissed because something more interesting is on TV. The portfolio I labored over for two grueling, agonizing years at the newspaper that I was immensely proud of was looked at and then summarily irrevocably lost. No, really. They still can't find it, and when I bring it up, they're annoyed by my gumption and my insinuation.

No hangings, no portfolios made, no copies made for their friends. Just a pat on the head and a "job well done." That's fine, actually. I'd rather that than nothing. I'd also sort of like some inkling of a memory to go along with their reading of my work, so when I ask them about my favorite poem, my question won't elicit raised eyebrows and a shared look of "uh oh, we're fucked." I'd also like to stop reminding them what my major is and what I want to do with it. It was cute the first time, on my birthday, but now all of the comedy has gone out of saying, "No, I'm not a literature major. No, I don't want to be a journalist. No, I don't think I'm going to grad school immediately." I won't even go into how difficult it is to refrain from sighing and walking away when the word "rhetoric" seems to be some foreign, never before heard Egyptian word when I've only been saying it for the past three years attached to the sentence "I want my Ph.D in Rhetoric."

I'm not feeling very merry today. I almost skipped out on the feast. Why? This will sound petty, but when I opened my gifts, I got two dress shirts (on sale for $10), two ties (also on sale), and an electric razor. My brother, whose interests don't extend much further than his xBox and... no, wait, that's it, got a shirt I'd love, some kind of handsfree headset for XBox live, a video game, new shoes, a new coat, and $100.

I spent in the neighborhood of $300 on them. They didn't understand why I was dumbfounded. At least they got my brother's interests right.

At least I know if I go today, Aunt Carol will defend me from my uncle when he will undoubtedly comment on the fact that I'm not wearing red (I'm wearing a nice seafoam green) and that my scarf is "too long."

Bah. Humbug. I hope your family doesn't make you feel estranged. Actually, that's another line of thought-- I spend a lot of my time dreading coming home, but this past semester had me dreading another day in Potsdam (loneliness is hard).

What do you do when you don't want to go home and don't want to go back to school?