Holidays

Ah, Thanksgiving.  The first major milestone in my seasonal affective disorder.  If I make it to Thanksgiving, I know I’ll survive Christmas.  And then there’s the long haul through January and February where I don’t have to worry about family nonsense, but I do have to sit around wondering why I never see the sun on workdays and if that’s healthy.

My supervisor says it is healthy.  She tells me that my job is bettering Humanity and myself.  Phone service at a little NPO with no hope of promotion and 20% below the local poverty line.  I wonder if my supervisor thinks monkeys and comical 1960’s robotic arms are also furthering Humanity.

I’ve always had this seasonal affective disorder thing because my dad abandoned us and my mom was a lunatic and the rest of my family are androids.  Since I can remember, I’ve writhed in the dark hell that is Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Good food in overheated houses with people who don’t know how to talk to each other.  I feel out of place if I eat turkey at any time of year in a house where the heat isn’t turned up to 99.

Another root cause is retail.  My first job from 1991 through 1997. I got Christmas and New Years off, so I was better than some, but every other holiday saw me stacking books, or standing behind a counter, dealing with the scum of the Earth who, seemingly through some dark magic, had the days off and regular jobs and real lives.

After retail, I worked for the AP running the news wires.  You know, those need to be edited and sent out by hand each day.  For two years, I worked every single day of the year.  The deadline was at 10am and 3pm and the job was 25 miles away so, come Christmas morning, I had to run out in the AM to get to the office, shoot out the wires, and then decide if I was going to go back home or hang around till 3pm.  These days, of course, I could do that remotely.  I probably could have then, but my boss was a cunt and I hope he’s choking on something right now.

I haven’t worked on a holiday since 1999 and, yet, I’m still in awe of the day off.  Currently, with a weekend job, and with the searing memory of retail and the AP job, there’s not a single weekend day or holiday where I don’t wake up thinking that I have to be somewhere.  Even if I’m on vacation somewhere far away, I wake up thinking, oh my god, it’s 8am!  I’m late!  For…something!

I believe it’s this compulsion that has led to me being an early riser.  8am is actually very late for me.  I’m usually up at six or seven, even when I’m not working.  Sometimes this is nice.  The days are much longer and relaxing once I realize that I can spend the entire time in a torn, filthy bathrobe drinking coffee and watching Doctor Who.

Lately, my friends have been trying to involve me in things over the holidays.  No doubt they fear I’m going to hang myself in the shower or something.  This year, I’m off to West Virginia for a non-traditional, laid back Thanksgiving.  No big event or meal, just a change of scenery, really.  And marathoning all five seasons of Angel, which will be a big adjustment from my current efforts to marathon Star Trek: The Next Generation, which I’ve been detailing episode by episode right here.  Also, please come to the bus stop tomorrow morning and shoot me in the face.

I have no plans for Christmas, though there is a weekend-long celebration in dreaded Virginia the week before.  My good friend Lonnie is putting me up for two days and serving some sort of fancy dinner.  Christmas Day, I’ll probably end up at my uncle’s girlfriend’s house for dinner, though my current plan is to lie low.

If there’s one thing I’ve come to covet, it’s living alone.  Something that won’t last much longer.  It’s so much easier to be depressive during the winter when no one is around to tell you to buck up, or invite you to an event (like the uncle’s girlfriend) that makes you realize how terrible your family really is.  I really might avoid her invite this year, because it was hard last year.  Everyone was drunk and happy, a whole family laughing and screaming and eating and having a beautiful time.

Christmas for us consisted of timed present opening – start at 8am, finish by 9am.  Then clean up everything right away.  Sometimes, my grandfather would stand over us with a big trash bag and grab the wrapping paper as soon as it came off, stuffing it down into the bulging Hefty bag.

Then everyone would complain about the need to eat breakfast, and my little cousin would get pissed off because the $1000 worth of presents weren’t enough. She’s famous for opening them robotically, all in a row as fast as she can, and then throwing them over her shoulder without looking.  Nobody would say anything.  We’d just watch as she’d tear in, unwrap, toss, repeat.

Then she would usually leave, not taking any of the presents, and not saying a word, and go to her room to punch holes in the wall or something.

The presents, for our family, weren’t a guessing game.  We all had to provide the other family members with a list no later than October 15th, and the list would be followed to the letter.  There was no goofy leeway or creativity.  The List would dominate conversation and, if you dragged your heels, it would often be the first topic of argument at Thanksgiving.  Where’s the Christmas list?  Get it in by December 1st or no presents!

After the gift opening, we’d go to the kitchen and have cold cuts and cheese for breakfast, which was unintentionally European.  Then we’d all retire to our own individual TV sets and zone out until dinnertime, 5pm, where we’d hurry through the meal, have coffee, then split up and go our separate ways.  Those of us living in the house would return to the TV, and those visiting would go home.

Drinking was always forbidden, except for the occasional glass of wine and sneaking beer under the basement stairs.

Thanksgiving was much the same, except there wasn’t the trouble of the morning.  Nothing would happen till 4:45, when visiting family were told to arrive and the rest of us were called to the table.  Sit down and eat promptly at 5pm, done by 6pm.  Then visiting family would leave and everyone else would go back to the TV.

It’s handy if you’re part of the visiting family.  You only have to be out for an hour, two at the most, then you can head home, or go to a second Thanksgiving with friends or whatever.

There wouldn’t be much talking during the meals, except for complaints. Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner would be a time to air grievances.  All the complaints about family members that had built up over the year.  Attitudes, failure to keep in touch, choices in life… My gift-tossing cousin would refuse food and just spoon feed herself butter, or mustard.  She’s always had a weird obsession with condiments.  When that would annoy my grandparents, a fight would ensue.  The cousin typically didn’t last more than 10 minutes at the table before throwing a fit and running away, slamming doors and knocking over whatever was in her path.

In my youth, the dinners were all about antagonizing my mom (or, if the drugs allowed her, mom would take the offensive and antagonize everyone else).  Later, we moved slowly into a scenario where I was the focus.  What’s wrong with me?  Why don’t I have a higher degree?  A girlfriend?  A better job?  A house?  I suppose that’s normal family stuff.

Maybe all of this is normal family stuff?  Maybe the ideal Christmas morning, and holiday dinner, is just stuff from the movies?  Maybe everyone is eating in overheated houses while being badgered to death and watching their cousin drink entire bottles of mustard and call the family elders “cocksuckers” and “motherfuckers” if they ask her to stop.

Oh, god, Thanksgiving.  I won’t be having Thanksgiving dinner with any family this year, and yet I lie awake every night this week in dread of the day.