Families

So, we have a baby now. And he's great... I love the little guy, despite the weird hours and toxic poop.
For the most part, things have gone pretty well, all things considered. We're sleep deprived and it's hard to keep track of what needs to be done (that is, stuff that isn't directly involved in the feeding and cleaning of the aforementioned baby).
Now, nearly all of my wife's family is close by. The immediate core family is within 20 minutes and the extended cousins and whatnot are within an hour. And her family loves to get together... I mean, it's almost frowned upon to not go to every little gathering. Her parents, sister, brother-in-law, and Aunt have already seen the kid and in a couple of weeks, apparently, he and my wife will go and see the extended family.
I don't have much family. My parents are both dead. My sister is away at school in Alabama, my Dad's family (Grandmother, Uncle, Aunt, 1 Cousin) is 2.5 hours away, and my Mom's family (Uncle, Aunt, 3 cousins) is way away in Kentucky and Virginia. None of my family have met the baby yet, due to the distance involved and the necessary planning.
My Uncle offered to buy my sister a plane ticket to come in for a weekend to see her nephew for the first time. Now granted, a lot of this was planned without much input on our part, which is kind of annoying (particularly since she'll probably need to stay with us at least one night), but it would still be cool to have my family come over. But with the chaotic way it was put together, my wife is pissed off about it. That, actually, pisses me off.
Apparently, the weekend my sister is coming in, is the same weekend that the baby is going to see the wife's extended clan. Nobody ever really asked me what I thought about the deal and besides, I thought we weren't taking him to any large gatherings for the first 6 weeks or so in order to let him build up some immune system.
So, my wife is ticked that she didn't really know that my sister was coming in that particular weekend regardless of the fact that I knew nothing about this other family thing. I'm pissed because she's making me feel like my family is an inconvenience while she can't tell her family to wait their damn turn. Hell, she doesn't even particularly like a bunch of these people.
So yeah, I'm kinda upset that my sister, my closest living relative, is apparently lower on the "go out of the way for" totem pole than a bunch of extended family that we almost never see.
I mean, I've already had to spend a few hours in our bedroom with our dogs while a friend of her mom's came over to see my son. The friend isn't a fan of dogs. Come to think of it, two of her mom's friends have been over, my wife's best friend has been here, an annoying friend of hers, and a couple of her co-workers. I really kinda just want to tell everybody to fuck off at this point.

Oh goody... the holidays are here

I've been dreading this for months.

Truthfully, I thought that maybe I'd be okay for the most part, that I could just really just keep the stress at the minimal and not let myself get overwhelmed. Unfortunately, I couldn't even make it to Thanksgiving before I wanted to just start screaming at people, never leave the house, and try and forget that there was anything out of the ordinary going on. At least twice I have almost cried myself to sleep.

Since I'm mostly writing this for myself as a place to just let all the dark shit that swirls around in my head and makes it hard to sleep or relax, anyone reading this should know that I typically will not use hyperbole when describing how I feel. When I say I want to start screaming at people or cry myself to sleep, I mean that quite literally.

The first twinges came the other day when the Black Friday/Christmas ads started appearing on TV. I'm already being assaulted by fuckers getting Lexuses for Christmas or stores trying to make me feel like it's exciting to stand outside someplace at midnight so I can get a great deal on a TV (assuming I don't get trampled to death or pepper sprayed). And of course, if it isn't promoting buying crap as the spirit of Christmas, then I get to see and hear the fucking Christians who really aren't sure what they want out of Christmas, but they damn well want to make sure that everybody knows that Jesus is the Reason for this angst causing time of the year. There's a local insurance guy that has produced ads solely to let us know that Jesus is the sole cause of the season. I would really love the guy to try and sell me insurance someday so I can tell him to Fuck Off.

It's not that I don't like Christmas... there are parts I actually do enjoy. But most of the stuff I enjoy has been made so complicated and stressful that all I feel is tired, angry, depressed, and looking forward to January so I can get back to a more regular routine.

The two major things I hate about the holidays are the gift giving and the Christians. For whatever reason, I don't like getting gifts. It embarrasses me. I don't know why. I do kind of enjoy giving people gifts, but that's really only if I can get something that I know they'll love that they absolutely aren't expecting. But having someone tell you exactly what they want takes all the fun out of it. I find no joy in essentially giving somebody something when they know exactly what it is because they told me what to get them. And that's part of the reason I don't want anything either. I hate being badgered for "ideas" so people can get me something. I don't want anything and I don't want to have to think of things for people to get me. That makes the whole process a chore and holds no enjoyment. Yet, nobody will respect my wishes and leave me out of the gift giving. Somehow, I'm the bad person because I'm depriving you the chance to go buy something for me. So in a compromise, I'll try and give them a list of charities that I support. That rarely happens. And that for me is the straw that breaks the camel's back. I'm the one being difficult because rather than wanting someone to go buy some trinket for me, I'd rather have that money used to help a charitable cause I support. I guess I really don't understand Christmas.

Of course, I'm pretty sure the Xians don't understand it either. Many of them get caught up in the whole materialistic consumerism too while claiming to be all about "traditional family Christmas." But the ones that really make me angry are the ones that scream about "The War of Christmas" and "Keeping CHRIST in CHRISTmas". I'm not going to go into all the reasons that this is beyond stupid (as well as ignorant, arrogant, and just plain pointless) because this is more about spilling my guts than giving out philosophical and historical dissertations that will be ignored by the people I'm directing them towards anyway. The simple idea is that, like or not you self-righteous bastards, "Christmas" is bigger than Jesus. Deal with it. I try to be tolerant of Christians and I try to not lump the good Christians with the bad Christians, but fuck it if I don't despise the whole fucking religion and everything about it. I just can't abide the willful ignorance that is promoted as a virtue.

So yeah, I can't wait for this crap to be over. It's gonna be a long 5 weeks.