hellidays

that time of the year is upon us, what i like to call hellidays. i've had a huge distaste for hellidays for, well, a long time, hence why i call them hellidays. and is also why the last x-mas i went "home" for was '03 and thanksgiving was '04.

most hellidays in my family involve lots of alcohol and lots of verbal fighting (with the occasional fisticuff rearing its head). one of the more memorable hellidays was a new year's eve, sometime in the mid-'90s. it was one of the few times that my immediate family hosted any helliday celebrations. and one of the few times that my dad's family mixed with my mom's family. but to get to the memorable part, my mother got way drunk, accused my father of having an incestuous relationship¹ with my aunt sylvia² (an argument my whole neighborhood heard), then went into their bedroom and proceeded to regurgitate all the menudo she had consumed that evening. and i had to clean it up. she didn't remember any of it the next day.

the last couple of x-mases i went to brownsville for are also memorable for my coping mechanisms. every x-mas, we go to brunch at my (not out) gay uncle ben's house (which is my mother's familial home). in '02, my parents and i were particularly not getting along, and my bro-in-law (BIL) was a good ear that year. and right before we went over to my uncle's house, my parents and i got into a huge argument about something. so i was fuming. when we got to my uncle's house, BIL and i noticed a huge bottle of jack daniel's that had been gifted to my uncle. knowing he wasn't a whiskey drinker, BIL and i opened it and proceeded to consume it and finish it off within 45 minutes. the next thing i remember, i'm waking up in my old room in my parents' house, go to the next room, and find my sister watching some margaret cho thing on comedy central. i ask her when we got back to our parents' house, and she said "yesterday."

fast forward to x-mas '03, the last time i went to brownsville for that helliday. again, my parents and i got into a huge argument right before going to my uncle's place. my sis and BIL went to his mom's place in el paso that year for x-mas, so i was solitary. so we got to my uncle's, i'm verbally attacked by one of older cousins, and i just couldn't take another argument. so i faked a really, really bad migraine. my dad drove me back to my parents' house, where i proceeded to drink myself to sleep, knowing my parents wouldn't return for several hours.

the easiest helliday i escaped from was the last thanksgiving i went to brownsville for in '04. i was working for the state at that time (which comes into play later). i really didn't want to go to brownsville that year, mostly because i didn't want to drive for five hours. but i still went. that year, we had dinner at my gay uncle's place (usually, we had dinner at my parents' house, with it just being my parents, my sister [and BIL when they got married], my half-brother, and me). so like most x-mases, my parents and i got into a huge argument before going over to my uncle's. then we got there, and it got weird. my uncle, who almost never showed any interest in getting to know me ever, was asking me about any "special" places to hang out in austin as he was planning a trip up here in the near future with some of his friends³. my cousin nicole (who was maybe 12 at the time) kept on asking me if i had a girlfriend and why i didn't have a girlfriend and why i never talked about girls and when was i going to get married and have a kid like my sister. my cousin lourdes (who was about five at the time) kept on coming up to me, saying she was going to tell me a secret, then kicked me in the shins. my aunt lulu kept asking me if i was seeing anyone "special". i just couldn't take it anymore. so i faked that i got a call from my supervisor saying we had to work that weekend⁴ and promptly drove back to austin.

x-mas '04 was the first helliday that i stayed put. and i was happy about it. what kinda upset me was that nobody seemed to understand why i would want to be by myself for a helliday. and they wouldn't let "my family and i don't get along" be a suitable answer. blah. anyway, that year, i started my current x-mas tradition of staying in, making my favorite side dishes for dinner, and watching a christmas story for 24 hours on tnt (or is it tbs; it's one of those turner networks). that first year was rocky, because my sister decided to come up from san antonio to see me "because i shouldn't be alone on christmas". of course, she didn't let me know she was coming up until they had entered the city limits. so her, BIL, and my niece came over, ate my food (which i hadn't even touched yet), my niece spilled her food on my carpet, my sister did a bad job of cleaning it up, then left a used diaper in my bathroom trash (which really smelled up the place). they couldn't have left soon enough. and it was lucky for me that 7-Eleven stays open on x-mas, and that there was one a block away from my apartment, because that's when i added "getting sloshed" to my new x-mas tradition. i've flown solo since.

thanksgiving '05 was a weird one. for the first time, i had a boyfriend during helliday season. even though we had only really been dating less than two months, we decided to have thanksgiving dinner at his place, just the two of us. he was considerate enough to get me some tofurkey, and we had a nice little dinner. and honestly, that's all i can remember. i'm sure we probably ended up getting into a fight like we always did, but i guess i've just chosen to selectively remember the good part about that day. last year, i decided to go with the traditional quartermaine thanksgiving dinner of pizza. i'll probably do the same this year, only this time i'll have pizza, beer, and watch degrassi high.

now i just need to decide if i want frozen pizza, or if i'll order out. decisions, decisions.

¹the accusation came from my aunt sylvia (one of my dad's half-sisters) and my aunt lulu (my mom's only sister) having a conversation about having met my paternal grandfather. my mother was so drunk at that point that she didn't remember that SHE WAS THERE when syl met my dad's dad, and went on to accuse my dad of hiding it from her and possibly hiding other things from her, because he'd cheated on her before (and she on him), so what's to stop him from having secret sex with his own half-sister. yeah, i listened to the whole thing and never quite understood how my mother's drunken logic allowed her to jump from my father not telling her that his half-sister met his dad to my dad having sex with his half-sister.
²my dad is an only child. his parents divorced while my grandmother was still preggers with my dad, and both remarried and had numerous children with their subsequent spouses. so i have lots of half-aunts and half-uncles, but i usually refer to my grandmother's children as aunts and uncles (because i grew up with them in brownsville), while i usually refer to my grandfather's children as half-aunts and -uncles (because they're estranged, really, and don't really consider my immediate family as family, unless my grandfather made them, and he's dead, so, yeah).
³my uncle was friends with all the major queens in brownsville, mostly from his involvement creating backgrounds and such for the community theater. if there had been any doubt in my mind that my uncle was straight, his friends would've erased that doubt and proudly (ha) placed the brightest pink sash that says "helloooo, i'm GAY!" on my uncle. although i'm still trying to convince myself that my uncle was smart enough to have not slept with any of them. he's too classy for that. i hope. i really hope. i really, really, really hope. because my uncle, even for his age, is a mildly attractive guy, and he could do waaaaaaaaaay better than those haggardly queens he hangs out with. i hope.
⁴i had told one of my then-co-workers that i didn't want to go home, and they suggested i say i was on-call. which is true for holidays during the legislative session, but my family didn't know that.