Can I say I hate the holidays? I know everyone else is having a great time, and based on how well off my family is, we should be having a great time too. But we're not. It's 11:45pm and we're trying to cook and de-giblet the turkey because I forgot to take it out sooner. And my mom is losing it because she can't handle these worst case scenarios. Doesn't help that my older brother decided to cook two loaves of banana bread today for no apparent reason, and I actually had to persuade him to clean up the mess. Heck, a few times he just stood there giggling like an idiot with flour, crumbs, and dirty dishes everywhere. We got the kitchen cleaned up, but it didn't help anyway. Mom found a spot in the kitchen we missed, wiped it clean, and complained about how a disaster her kitchen always is and how no one helps her. As I'm standing there, helping her.
Where's the rest of our family? Working. They work for the airport, so it's their solemn duty to make sure everybody else is home for Christmas. And tomorrow, mom is forcing us all to go to church with some elderly family friends. A Norwegian Lutheran church whose attendees are in their 70s. And everyone will be crazy dressed up because it's Christmas. And it gets worse. My older brother suffers from a mental illness, and one of his current problems is a fear of being in crowds. If you take him into public, he starts looking over his shoulder, getting very tense, and says people are talking about him. He's even said that there's an app in the iPhone store that lets people read his thoughts on their smartphones. I'm not kidding. I'm not sure why mom won't consider letting him stay home so he doesn't end up randomly screaming in the middle of the sermon or something.