"Do you see the abuse I have to put up with?!"

Merry fucking Christmas. I think this has been quite possibly the worst ever or close. Though perhaps not as bad as the Christmas of '89 when my then seven year old brother, in a fit of pique, declared that he hated all his gifts because I got a stereo and he didn't. My mother, in a fit of rage, took all his gifts and stuffed them into a garbage bag.

I LOVE my family.

I got a whiff that something was off this morning when I went into my parents' bedroom to ask my dad for a dollar to stick in the purse I was giving my mom (because it's bad luck to give a purse without any money in it).

"Your mother's not happy with me," he said.

I sighed sympathetically. "What now?"

"Because I didn't go see Christmas lights with her last night."

We both exchanged an eye roll. "Good times!"

Prepared for a testy morning, I later brought in my wrapped presents to the living room where my mother, father, and brother were already sitting.

"Whose pile is whose?"

"My pile," my mother replied, Bloody Mary in hand, "is the pile with the least amount of gifts."

Jesus-fucking-christ. I placed a pile of presents on her "meager" pile and declared sarcastically, "Ohmygood look!! You just doubled your pile!! Merry Christmas!!"

The gift opening that followed was beyond painful. My brother, always the morose bastard, declared that he didn't like any of the clothes my mother got him, which only worsened my mother's mood. "I give up," she seethed. And every gift that my father opened elicited a sarcastic, martyr like response from her.

"Christmas is the last holiday I can spend with you all," I interjected after a particularly bad round of bitching. It was my last ditch attempt to save the morning and to get everyone to stop acting like assholes. "You're this close to ruining it."

"What makes you think that it hasn't been ruined for me?" she quipped all martyr like.

"You think I'm ruining Christmas, Mom?" Because just you wait, I think.

"No body would go see Christmas lights with me last night. I had to go all by myself. And when I asked you to polish the silver ice bucket you said, 'Is there some reason you cannot do it yourself?'"

Side note to the folks at home. When my mom asked -- wait, that's not right because she never asks you to do something, she tells you -- me to polish the silver bucket yesterday, I was feeling very awful and dizzy because I was fighting off a bad cold. I was sitting in the chair trying to make the room stop spinning because, well, I'm sick and visibly so. When she handed me the ice bucket and the polish without word, that's when I said, "Is there some reason you cannot do it yourself?" Perhaps slightly bitchy, yes, but only because every moment I've been in this house it's been do this and do that. And when I said I didn't want to go look at Christmas lights with her, it's because I'm a little bit of a holiday grinch and driving around the suburbs looking at the lights/decorations on everyone's McMansion is, surprisingly, not my idea of a good time.

"Mom, I was sick," I protested.

"I've been sick since last July!"

Lord in heaven.

Later, when my mother got up to get breakfast ready, my father looked over at me and put his finger to his temple like a gun and pulled the trigger.

Exactly, Dad. Exactly.