I'm totally dreading them. This is going to be a long vent so just scroll on by if you're not interested. My father died in 2002 so it's just been my mother, sister, and myself. My mother is 77 years old and my sister is 33. I have been living about 400 miles away from them for almost 10 years. My mom and sister have quite a volatile relationship that can change in an instant. They had another blowup just a week ago on my mom's birthday which ruined the whole day and my mom didn't get to do anything. My sister has had a temper - I might even go so far as to say great rage - since her childhood. I believe she has undiagnosed mental illness of her own and my parents made her go to therapy but once she turned 18 they couldn't make her do it anymore. Amazingly, she is a RN and the head of a small emergency room/ICU and as far as I know none of this awful behavior is exhibited there - it's channeled into what is a high stakes, high stress job. But back at home, things are much different. My sister *still* lives with my mom which makes everything toxic. She pretty much confines herself to one room in the house when she is home and my mom can't even knock on the door without her blowing up at her. I have asked my mom why my sister just doesn't get a place of her own nearby so that they could have some breathing room, and my mom tells me that my sister feels she needs to be there in case my mom falls or has trouble with her knees. I laugh out loud at my sister's reasoning because she is extremely nasty to my mom - even though she's a nurse - and gets huffy at her even when my mom is worried about something like her blood pressure. Quite uncompassionate. I will say that my mother is a bit of a hypochondriac and she has a very anxious temperament which can get on my nerves too, but the way my sister treats her is just way overboard and totally out of line, and she's just getting nastier as she gets older.

I had an aunt and uncle who lived 10 minutes away from my parents, but my uncle was my dad's brother, so after my dad died that natural link broke down. The link has been broken further now that this aunt and uncle have both passed away in the last 3 years and their five children are quite a bit older than me and my sister. Those cousins are friendly to varying degrees but the youngest one (who is now 40) was quite mean to us when we were growing up. None of them ever call my mom or sister and we are never invited to spend the holidays with them. We used to when my dad was still alive. After a few recent events they had (milestone birthday party etc), my mom said she was totally ignored and if she ever needed help she would never call any of them ever again.

So....it's going be one effing fantastic Thanksgiving and possibly Christmas with my mom and sister's on/off hatefest, plus my dad's crabby first cousin and her daughter who complains all the time. Happy holidays, everyone.