Plonker did a holiday post?! Two posts in a week!? God damn it, I can’t let him show me up!
Ah the holidays, one of my most dreaded times of year. It’s not just the fact that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are at the coldest time of the year in my part of the world (though it doesn’t help, and I’m somehow even more pissy in the cold). Growing up, we had our traditions. Thanksgiving my mom would make dinner. Christmas we would go to my Great Aunt’s house on Christmas Eve before coming home and unwrapping gifts. Honestly until my teens I never realized that most people waited until Christmas Morning to open gifts. I guess technically we did, since we would get back home after midnight, but later years when we no went to her house we just said “fuck it” and exchanged gifts whenever.
They don’t sound like bad traditions. “Hoff”, you say, “why for you no like the holidays?!” Well the little detail I left out was “Grandma”.
When you watch a Christmas movie and Grandma comes to visit, everyone is stoked. “Holy Shit! Grandma is coming! Fuck yeah!” they say. Whereas in my house it went more like “Fuck, we gotta call Grandma and invite her over” and then “I ain’t picking her up! It’s your turn!” That sounds mean, and I guess it was, but I’m guessing your relatives are decent to be around.
A little about Grandma: She was never a pleasure to be around. When my mom and 2 uncles (one lives with me.. ugh) were growing up she was, as I understand it, pretty verbally abusive, and occasionally physically abusive. She was also horrible with money, rarely paid the bills (leaving the responsibility to the kids), and was a hoarder. Grandma and Grandpa got divorced in the 50’s, I’m not sure if Grandpa left because of Grandma or if Grandma left because Grandpa cheated on her. I was never close with Grandpa, and probably only saw him purposely a few times in my life, and any other time was at a family reunion or randomly running into him at a city-wide event.
All of my memories over Grandma start in the 80’s when she moved back from Florida. My mom helped find her an apartment for the elderly, where she lived for about 20 years. Like I mentioned, she was a hoarder. And it was a one room (well, 2 room, there was a bathroom) apartment. So there was a big pile of “stuff” in the middle of the floor. We’d help clean it up, but she never kept it clean. Her sisters would be pissed that we didn’t help her more often. See, Grandma was also a liar, and a thief. She would tell the other relatives sad stories about how rotten her kids were. The relatives would then call us all pissed and bitch about how we won’t take her shopping or help her clean her apartment. Which were lies. My uncle, the one that lives with me, used to take her shopping every Saturday. Some times she wouldn’t buy anything, then tell the relatives she never went shopping. Some times he’d go at the predetermined time and she wouldn’t even be there. She decided to go shopping with someone else… without letting anyone know about it. I’m not sure how much she stole, the only thing I KNOW she used to take were pictures. If you let her look at a photo album chances were at least a couple pictures would wind up missing. As far as cleaning her apartment, I took part in clean up efforts too many times. When she was finally kicked out of the place for basically destroying it (she would routinely pour grease down the drains [blaming it on the guy upstairs] overflowing the sink, which in turn destroyed the cabinets. Also it smelled like garbage) I refused to help in the clean up. Eventually my mom and uncle agreed to pay me to help. We filled up the dumpster. Twice. For the apartment complex. From a one (two) room apartment.
But this is a holiday post. But that’s the back story of Grandma. So, every year we’d call to invite her over for Thanksgiving. And every year it was “Oh I had no idea what I was going to do! I thought I was going to have to sit here and eat hot dogs!” Which honestly sounds great to me. I’m not a huge Thanksgiving meal fan. I don’t look forward to it. Turkey doesn’t get me off. If I want turkey, I’ll buy it whenever I’m in the mood. Ahh the modern age.
That yearly quip would be just the beginning. Thanksgiving would arrive and we would have spend the day of and night before cooking. Setting up the table from the kitchen and expanding it in the living room (we didn’t have a dining room), and setting out the “fancy plates”. The Food would look good.
Whoever pulled the short straw and had to pick up Grandma went through the same routine: Pull up to her place, go to her door, bang on it repeated until she answered 10 minutes later. She’d say she’d grab her coat, and you’d wait another 10 minutes in the car as she was grabbing her coat? She took forever. She then put down your car and say how dirty it was (she never drove, and again, hoarder), and go on to tell you that she hasn’t been to the store in forever with you knowing full well that one of us had just taken her a few days previous. Upon arriving home we’d then get inside and drink wine. Because we’d need it.
As I kid I was somewhat of a picky eater, though I did eat turkey. But every year “OMG your eating turkey!? You don’t like turkey!” and every year “yeah.. I like turkey” as I’m shoving it in my mouth. Stuffing was also a yearly shocker to her. “JOYCE! (my mom) You don’t stuff your turkey, do you!?” and every year, “we go through this every year, yes I stuff the turkey, I pull it out and put it in a bowl to serve” Over the years it went from calm explanation to “GOD DAMN IT! EVERY YEAR I TELL YOU I DO!” to which grandma would reply “ok ok” in a “well how am I supposed to know?” kind of way. Cranberry sauce was a point of contention, where no matter what we did it was never right. I’m not a huge fan of cranberry sauce, but my mom and sister like the jellied cranberry sauce, so they bought that. So it would be “ohhh you bought jellied… I like the whole cranberry sauce.” So after that we bought both. “ohhh you bought jellied… I like the whole cranberry sauce.” Grandma the whole cranberry sauce is right here. “ohhh you bought that brand…” It’s.. it’s Ocean Spray…
It sounds like minor inconveniences as I type them out, but basically throughout the whole meal would just be put downs and slights from her to us. She’s been dead for a decade but I still have the same this going on with my uncle, except now I tell him to go fuck himself. Plonker has the same thing with his aunt.
Christmas wasn’t much better. It would essentially be a rehash of Thanksgiving except after being at my Great Aunt’s (her sister, also a hoarder, but at least pleasant) for 6 hours and ready to leave my grandma would insist on doing the dishes. Mind you she didn’t do her own dishes and her sister didn’t want her to do the dishes.
When I was old enough to get a job I would volunteer to work the holidays. well at the jobs that were open on the Holidays. Ahh stocking shelves at Shop n Save. That was a long 2 years. I remember people coming in on Thanksgiving day and buying frozen turkey wanting it for that night. Yeah.. that’s not going to happen. Another time I had a guy telling me it was a shame that they were open and that the company should be ashamed for having us work on a holiday, to which I replied “we’re open because people like you are here”. At least it was all worth it for we got “Premium” pay for holidays… an extra 25 cent an hour. I think I’ll retire.
Even now that most of my family is either dead or living out of the area I still don’t really enjoy the holidays. For about 7 years, I baked out of my house, and Christmas was, of course, an incredibly busy time. I would spend at least a week running only a couple hours of sleep a night to fill orders. And I have a full time job. Eventually it got to the point I needed to take a week vacation to focus on baking that week. I would then just sleep through Christmas itself, unless I was invited somewhere else, which luckily didn’t happen often. I stopped when I moved, but I have yet to get back into baking. On one had it was kind of nice providing something that someone wanted. I felt popular doing it. Also the money wasn’t bad. Though, I really should have charged more. I priced based on what I would pay, and I’m a cheap bastard, so it was like $1-$2 profit per dozen cookies. Not everything is money though, and I think the biggest stopping block is time and location. My current kitchen is bigger than my last, but not organized well. I spend half my time just looking for utensils (my uncle randomly puts stuff where ever when he does dishes. It was here last time… so it’ll be some totally random place another time), and I’m low on counter space. And time wise I’m just tired. I get home from work and I don’t want to do anything. So there’s that. Some day though. Maybe I’ll make a Fujupz Bakez series of videos.
For the record, Easter was about the same at Thanksgiving and Christmas, except I like even less foods on those days. Also we’re not religious. So, it was just food days, and not liking the food makes it just a day.
Merry Christmas
