Why we go home for Christmas (or reminding ourselves that where we were from sucked as bad as we had thought)

I love my family dearly, and generally look forward to coming home for the holidays. It is annoying to realize once here though, that really it is one long exercise in frustration.

The older sister who hangs out with bad christians and has their horrible judgemental tone when discussing anything. All they are concerned about is being comfortable and well liked and having more and they prance around swinging a religion whose theological base is that all people are worthy of forgiveness and deserving of compassion and grace and that nobody is perfect, but somehow this translates into "we are blessed because we are better, and if those other people weren't messing things up we'd be hanging out with Jesus right now." Whoever made VeggieTales should be shot. I came to the realization that I am actually the most conservative member of my family. I think the govenment should leave us the hell alone, I support fiscal resposibility, and I think there is nothing worse than christian rock. Name one thing.

My mother who I love dearly as well is less crazy in that way than at sometimes in the past, but she enjoys thinking of new ways to make a vacation disagreeable. She currently has two adult sons living at home, so it isn't like I am the only manual labor availible to her or that this is the only time of the year that anything can be done, but instantly it is "get a good night's rest so you can get up and work hard tomorrow." I don't mind helping out, I plan on doing things to get the house ready for the party, but in my mother's mind, any hesitation on wanting to spend my vacation working on some task list that she has accumulated in her mind is a sign of abject laziness. She is currently in one of her moods where she will find a way to criticize anything anyone is doing no matter what. The only thing she will talk about is what should be done and how someone should be doing it. She can be a lot of fun and great to be around but when she gets like this I want to pull my hair out.

All of this is usually manageble, as my brothers and I can usually leave the house for a while, but of course, this is the south and it is sunday, so there are no bars or coffee shops open anywhere. There are bars that open up at midnight, an hour away. So I can slowly go crazy here at home or maybe go to the waffly house, or walmart. both of which are seeming like great options at the moment.

sorry to bitch, but anyway, I have once again been reminded that life in AL isn't and never was the pleasant idyllic life that I occasional bastardize it into in my mind. But it will be for a few days when New Year's gets here and everyone is around and I won't want to leave and will wish I could just stay longer and will pretend for another year that my house is always fun and entertaining.

How are you doing?