My supposed best friends gave me and my husband a bottle of wine for Christmas. I can’t drink wine because I have an allergic reaction to something in wine, and they are very aware of this after me having reactions to foods at restaurants we would go to together. So they gave ‘us’ a gift that I can’t actually have.
This comes after my husband and I have spent the last year being there for them through losing their jobs, their car, almost losing their house, and a bunch of other drama. It also comes after we spent all day making a meal free of their allergies, as I always do, and after I spent several days making Christmas cookies that are safe for them.
I don’t know if the bottle of wine is cheap or expensive, and it honestly doesn’t matter. Last year they got me an ornament for our tree, and it is one of my dearest possessions because it has a small poem about friendship on it. This year’s gift stung because of how much of ourselves we gave to them, only for them to clearly pick up something last minute and without any thought.
I don’t really have any family or other friends to celebrate with, so the most important people to me besides my husband are them. It hurts to see how little I apparently mean to them in comparison…
If you are asking if she knew beforehand, yes. We once had to rush out of a restaurant because a dish included wine and I didn’t know until my mouth felt like it was on fire. She has been there many times as I have had to explain it to others, and when I have been checking food to make sure it doesn’t have wine or vinegar.
If you are asking if I have mentioned it to her since she gave me the gift, no. I haven’t had the energy to try to deal with that conversation, I still have plans with people through New Year’s. I will probably bring it up in a few days, but right now it hurts to even think about and I just want to get through the rest of the holidays.
I understand, however, this is going to bother and poison you slowly but steadily if you don’t address it with her.
Just ask her straight-up: girl, you know I’m allergic to wine and felt not great when you gave the thing I’m allergic to as a gift and my partner can’t enjoy it with me. What’s up with that?
If its an oversight hopefully she owns up. If not, well, theres bigger problems and either way she’s signalling to you to get out of her life or whatever.
Keep me posted if you don’t mind, but make no mistake: you will basically almost certainly have to address this at some point in the future, don’t let it destroy you until you do it anyway
Oh I will be having that conversation in a few days. I am taking a lesson from my therapist and letting myself rest from the hurt and decide what kind of resolution I want. I have a history of crumbling when I get pushback for standing up for myself, so giving myself time to sit with the feeling for a couple of days helps my brain realize that what she did was actually bad, and not just me overreacting.
But, coming from a family where we all suck at gifts, it is somewhat relatable. It is unbelievable how difficult and anxiety-provoking gift buying can be for some people, and caring more about someone only makes it harder. In the end one could land on something awful and last minute after worrying about it for months, and it seems like one simply doesn't care.
I of course don't know this specific situation, and it is indeed a particularly bad gift considering your allergy. But don't read it as a sign that they don't care - it could be that they care quite a lot, and that it's a case of something else entirely.
Aunt (?) And cousin. Apparently Aunt has being drinking since the 23 by the 24 at night she was drunk out of her mind; insulted and scolded my cousin and his girlfriend in front of everyone in the family dinner at grandma’s because the girlfriend was wearing a croptop. I frankly though it would’ve being about the fact that she is 14 and he is 20. ( But apparently not. I personally left when they arrived. I got told about the fight later) Everybody left or kept on arguing after that. Hopefully your holiday’s dinners are better .
Yup. When I mention it , I was screamed at and told “I should mind my own business” , “He is an adult he knows what he is doing” and “who am I do judge other people” I am not proud of THAT situation. My family is fucked but we are ALL welcome at Christmas dinner, I go for the free meal and to hug my grandma and leave right after. Apparently the girlfriend’s family is very close to my cousin’s mother , I don’t know them . Is all messed up (¯―¯٥)
He knows what he’s doing, but does she know what he’s doing?
He probably researched the local law on the issue, has a plan in case he’s questioned by some cop, and carries a card in his wallet with an overview of the applicable laws printed on it.
Yeah, any family that defends this guy deserves to be walked out on.
He probably researched the local law on the issue, has a plan in case he’s questioned by some cop, and carries a card in his wallet with an overview of the applicable laws printed on it.
Wasn’t that a thing in one of the Transformers movies?
I mentioned the law first time I heard of it , one of the uncle’s said “who’s is going to tell? Will you?” And oh boy did that freak me out. This year before leaving my grandma asked me “why are you going against family?” All I said is that I wasn’t trying to have a go at nobody that I was sorry. I hugged her and left. It is all very bitter and sad. I can’t watch.
With some luck I am hopefully leaving town sometime next year. I don’t want to be around if this goes bad and the police is involve, they will probably think it was me if I am around for that. I don’t understand what they are all thinking , and I frankly don’t want to.
A friend’s brother died. It was literally out of nowhere. And said friend is stick home with Covid - which isn’t what did him in, but still. Massive suckage.
Plus it didn’t even feel like Christmas this year. Visited family, but…I dunno. It just wasn’t, this year.
About a decade ago, my grandfather fell ill around Thanksgiving and they found he was full of cancer, had a few weeks left, and sent him home for hospice care.
I was unexpectedly laid off just before that, so, jobless, it became my job to pull the overnight shift there, tending to him, sleeping in 1.5h spells, and the next morning, being expected to stick around to keep company with relatives coming to visit my grandfather, playing host, etc. even though my dad and other family members were there.
I was basically living on coffee and grief.
That Christmas was an incredibly hollow ‘celebration’, and my grandfather passed in the early morning hours of new years eve.
What helped me was just forcing myself to go through the holiday motions in the following years. I’m not a super Christmas person anyway, but just going to the parties, smiling, listening to the music, etc. Fake it till you make it.
I still always think of my pap every Christmas/new years, and I’ll still have a few moments where it makes me super sad… but I managed to avoid having the whole season become “sit alone and mope in useless grief for a few weeks”, which is where my mind likely would have gone, had I not made the active conscious effort to avoid it.
I’m Jewish and never really cared for Christmas much because I always felt like an outsider- until I spent one in the UK, where it’s pretty much entirely secular and just about having fun. Such a different experience. I’d probably like Christmas in America if it was more like that.
As a Scandinavian, I'm genuinely super happy to hear that! As far as I'm concerned the Christians are very welcome to celebrate whatever they'd like, but they have no right to monopolize the festivities. It's winter solstice goddamn it, it's been celebrated since the beginning of time and belongs to everyone!
It sucks how much of it is Christian in the U.S. My whole life it was, “oh, you’re not a Christian and willing to do our Christian things for Christmas? You’re not one of us,” until I went to the UK. I wish people here understood.
Our cat got a full urinary blockage, so we’ve been at the vet dealing with that. My mom’s horse got colicky, and seems like she’s got twisted guts, so she’s been dealing with that. Dad broke his hip last week, and has developed a foot infection that he can’t deal with properly, so he’s been at the emergency clinic dealing with that. I got socks though, and I’m super jazzed about that. And donated a bunch of money to the food bank, so at least some people can eat today.
Well done for giving despite all the crap you’ve had to deal with. Sorry about all the bad luck. I am also pleased about your socks. Nice socks are far rarer than they should be.
Thanks. It’s been a hell of a year. We went from pretty financially secure in July to basically unable to pay bills in December, and we haven’t changed anything. Then the food bank put out a call that they have 5000 new visitors this year, on top of the 12000 regulars. If we’re in the shit, then everyone below us is deeper in it, and need cash more than we do. Not sure how we’re gonna pay for our little guy though, that set us back two months wages.
There’s an old saying in Tennessee - I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once Darlene, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can’t get fooled again.
I had my holiday time off canceled for the second year in a row, but I can’t even do any work because the customer that threw their problems at us while they’re on vacation didn’t provide enough specifications.
During my standup yesterday we literally determined I don’t have any work to do. Thanks boss.
I was writing my resignation in my head all weekend instead of enjoying my holiday.
It’s the customer’s responsibility to define the nature of the issue. People in support aren’t magic if you provide no details and then become non-available then that’s a customer problem.
The fact that we aren’t allowed to celebrate it in my country. It’s seen as unimportant. In fact, we don’t ever have Christmas breaks. I saw school buses packed with students heading to class today (and yesterday too), some are even taking exams. Radio stations play absolutely no Christmas music. Nothing in the country is decorated for Christmas. Life goes on as usual as if Christmas doesn’t exist.
This video by Gari Sullivan perfectly explains how life is for us. Yes, it’s 2 years old already, but I doubt that it’s that irrelevant.
I have not eaten solid food since August (I live on Ensure and Gatorade) and dry heaved every morning. The latter is in the past because, after months of trying to figure out what is causing this, I had my gallbladder out last Thursday and the heaving has stopped. But I still can’t eat and almost any food smell really disgusts me.
I mean the presents were nice, but between the surgery pain, the itching from where they shaved my entire stomach, the lack of eating, the not wanting to smell any Christmas food, and the general lack of energy… it wasn’t a good Christmas.
Are you at least eating now? I had another 6-week bout of not eating earlier this year. This surgery was my last step before going to the Mayo Clinic, which will cost a huge amount of money (I’ll have to do a GoFundMe), so I really don’t want to have to do that.
My dad spent, I believe, 3-4 years where every single meal he would gagging on the food and end up throwing up. Initially, they thought it was from the severe and chronic throat infection he had and because of our health care system it took them that many years to get his tonsils removed and at least rectify the infection issue. That didn’t solve the problem though, and eventually it turned out there was damage to a nerve in his throat that was causing it and he needed another surgery to fix that.
Watched him go through hell all those years, so I definitely feel for you and hope you get this resolved!
Agreed, I’ve had two major surgeries and neither came anywhere close to that level of pain afterwards. At least they gave me so much pain medication I kinda lost two days in a haze. It just happened to be Christmas evening and day that I missed completely, lol.
My father dying. Haven’t had very much contact, but the rest of the family expected some things from me apparently, still don’t know what exactly, I just left the hospital silently, like my father left my life when I was four. I’m not really affected by the whole ordeal, but it really really annoyed me over Christmas. That guy couldn’t even die without making a fuzz. 🙄
While I am a stranger and me saying sorry probably doesn’t help much. That stuff sucks and I am sorry you had to deal with it. People have it in their head that we are all supposed to love our family and just get along but people don’t realize that families are sometimes just people who didn’t love us or loved us less than we loved them or vice versa loved us more than we loved them. Family is tricky. It doesn’t sound like you were close and I don’t know your entire story but either way it is a loss and regardless of him not being there for you it says a lot that you were at the very least there for him. Which, in my opinion, is the most you can do.
I hope you are the person that carries that forward and uses that as a means to not walk out on others lives when they need you most and I hope in return they are a part of yours when you are on your way out of this world. Enjoy your holidays.
Lost my grandmother a few days prior, got bumped out of my shitty job to a lower paying even shittier job, and have to pass on a good job opportunity bc it would mean a big move and my partner refuses to move with me. And shes going traveling for 1.5 months on vacation right away without me. We have a house together and have been together for almost 14 yrs.
She has a ton of overtime hours from her job. She hasn’t had to use her banked vacation time in years. I only get 3 weeks and if I accumulate more they start trying to force you to use it. My family/friends live across the country and I just went to see them recently, so I don’t have the vacation time to travel. It’s not malicious on her part, she just loves to travel and I just can’t go this trip. More jealous that I’m stuck not going, but I don’t mind the alone time.
I like cooking, so I went all out trying to cook a nice chicken dinner for me and my wife. I made stock the day before, brined a chicken, made basically everything from scratch, etc. In my haste to get everything ready, I cooked the chicken upside down. 🤦♂️
Alongside this, I have IBS, but am relatively lucky in that I can usually see the signs of when my stomach will start acting up. I’ve been planning a boxing day walk, and I’m so bloated my stomach looks bigger than my (30 weeks pregnant) wife’s. It’s gonna be a fun day…
Really sorry about the IBS. That always sucks. Re the chicken- what happens when you cook it upside-down? Isn’t meat meat? Sorry, I’m totally ignorant on this.
I cook turkey and chicken upside down. It makes the white meat much better. If you need to see the finished bird like it looks in advertisements, take it out with 15 minutes left, flip it over and pop it under the broiler.
Add comment