s/o Christmas drama, how was your Thanksgiving?

[sjh722]

Here's a story from my family's house.

There are 4 kids in my family. 3/4 of us are upstanding citizens, college graduates, hold professional jobs, are self-supporting, etc etc. My other brother still works for my parents' business (where they let a LOT slide with him, he is not a model employee - thankfully they have a 75 person company, not a 3-person company, so he's not bankrupting them). He is also recently divorced and it was a mess. (And I'm pretty sure he was responsible for a lot of the mess, he is not an easy person to live with and see above re: irresponsibility.)

SO, we finish Thanksgiving dinner. He pushes his chair back and is like, "Well, I'm going to Candy's house. See you!"

We're all like, "Um, what, who is this?"

He's like, "Oh, my girlfriend. She was having Thanksgiving with her kids earlier, now I'm going to go over and see her."

I said, "How old are her kids?" (Thinking the answer would be something like age 7 - 10 or under, because my brother is 27.)

COLLEGE AGED.

"Uh, how old is Candy?"

FORTY FOUR.

She is old enough to be his mother. He also wouldn't tell anyone how they met beyond "socially". Is he dating a 44-year old stripper or what?

I asked my mom what was up with this after he left and she got snippy and said, "I know it's a terrible idea. Do you think no one has told him this?"

O.M.G. How do you raise 3 normal children and one who makes terrible life choices and thinks it is normal to date someone 18 years older than him, with kids practically his age, who I can guess with 97% certainty (based on a lot of his other winning "friends") is an uneducated hillbilly.

I sound like a snob, but I really hope this "Candy" business fizzles out and she does not show up at Christmas. He is also prone to doing highly impulsive things and it would not be outside the realm of possibility for him to propose to someone he's been dating for 6 months. It's happened before.

[thewop]

Haha. My younger brother is known for his odd gf picks/bad life choices. The best thing to do is just ignore it, I think. The less of a big deal you make of it, the better. My brother knows he's kind of the black sheep and sometimes does things to get a rise out of people. He's the type who would continue to date someone simply because the family didn't like her. It has gotten better since he joined the Navy though....his current giflfriend is actually normal and super sweet which is weird. LOL.

Every family has one of THOSE types....

[ssmjlm]

Other than not knowing how many people were coming until they showed up thank you BIL ours was surprisingly drama free.

Although poor MIL was given mis-information by BIL about whether his 2 kids would be coming or not, but thankfully DH was able to straighten that mess out, since he works with BIL's ex and she gave him the real story.

[tarheels]

Grandpa and Grandma I'm sure often wonder where they went wrong with my mom My mom is the less than successful one in the family. She's also 1 of 4. All 4 kids went to college, got professional jobs. All of them are comfortable in life except my mom who must have been absent the day they taught subtraction in second grade: 5 -1 -3 -4 = -3 ...stop spending! I don't understand it, but we all have our flaws. She's a wonderful person and I try to focus on all of her many good attributes when I want to ring her neck.

And my cousin's name is Candy. Well, it's Candace now - no one's allowed to call her Candy other than her mom. I guess the thing about Candy being a stripper name is true lol. (Er, um, edit - my cousin is a nurse and stopped going by Candy bc she thought it was stripper-ish, not because she is a stripper.)

[munkii]

Nov 27, 2012 13:27:10 GMT -5 thewop said:

Every family has one of THOSE types....

Unfortunately, this seems to be the case. My oldest sister falls into this category. The good news, OP, is that your brother decided not to bring Candy home for the holidays and visited her at her house instead. When my sister was his age, she'd bring them over--a new one every year.

[kaylie]

There's a reason we spend most holidays with H's family =). The cast of characters on my side is just out of control.

Sister 1: Recovering drug addict who loves drama and will make a mountain out of any molehill that might come her way. Tends to get pretty drunk at any family affair/holiday and prone to accusatory outbursts. Doesn't think it's fair that I have what I have, even though I went to college, work full time and (usually) spend responsibly, none of which can be said for her.

Step brother 1: Serving a five year prison term.

Step mother: Gets uncontrollably drunk and emotional. Talks smack about us to our siblings and step siblings (which then gets back to us). Was discovered passed out on the beach after step brother 1's wedding. Fortunately she's a cop, so she didn't get in trouble. Also spouts out crazy racist stuff about muslims taking over the world.

Paternal grandmother: Is permanently preserved thanks to her alcohol consumption over the years. I've never seen her with fewer of two glasses of wine in her. Tries to kiss step brothers on the lips. Tends to wear articles of clothing that are shorter than someone in their early 80s should wear.

Fortunately these people are all connected to my dad, who I avoid anyway. Seriously though, once we start having kids I'm not letting those people anywhere near them.

[boiler717]

Ugh. We invited DH's family up for the evening of TG since their plans were done at 2. No one wanted to come so we had to drive down there the Sun before. Except it wasn't TG (we got soup leftovers from the middle school cafeteria) and no one else bothered to come see us (they had all gone out to breakfast at to niece's play earlier which no one told us about). Then we got a guilt trip about how we never see anyone. DH's mom announces she wants to come visit us in December but not for Christmas so we still need to come down on the 22 for Christmas. Three out of 5 weekends with them? No thanks.

[prazenjc]

just to put it out there, i married someone 18 years older than i am. granted, i was 34 when we met and i worked with (and do in my current job as well) with people my dh's age. we do both differ from your brother, as we fit the other definition of the 3/4 of your siblings: "upstanding citizens, college graduates, hold professional jobs, are self-supporting, etc." i don't think i would have married someone that much older than me when i was in my late 20's though.....

i hope for your family's sake that if this Candy doesn't fizzle out in her relationship with your brother that she instead turns out to be a mature woman that will have a positive impact on your brother and help him become less immature and more responsible & less selfish.

we had very little drama in our holiday celebration. the only thing that ever came up was with my nephew who's dad (my brother) divorced his mother, cut all of us off (me & my sisters) and only talks with my mother and his oldest son. my nephew seemed to be fishing for information regarding us and our relationship with my brother (my brother may have put him up to it), but said, "don't ask me about my dad, because i can't tell you." its terrible that my brother is manipulating my 14 year old nephew that way. he is at an age where he needs his father and takes every little crumb of attention he gets (only monthly, maybe 2x/month phone calls that don't last very long).

oh, and unless i missed something, it was decided to do Christmas next year at my house....not sure how i feel about this, since we will have a new baby by then. she will be about 6 months by then, so maybe we will be normalized enough to be able to handle an invasion of my siblings. :-\

[MrsAxilla]

My brother invited himself and stayed for ten days!! I had no idea he planned an all-inclusive vaca at his big sister's house. He did not contribute ONE THING! Didn't bring or make anything for T-Day; didn't help clean up after dinner (didn't even take his own fucking plate to the kitchen); didn't offer to treat us to a meal - didn't even offer to pay for his own meals! He didn't even PRETEND to go for his wallet, not once!! What kind of asshole 35 yr old man imposes for a week and expects to be totally treated and catered to?!? I was seething the whole time, but DH is way more tolerant and kept me from biting his head off. He's never staying with us again though.

[sierramist03]

DHs grandma made the comment to sister in law in front of everyone. Sister in law was talking about niece cutting teeth for 2 months. DHs grandma said well that might be her problem now but I don't think that was her problem then. I just waned to start clapping grandma is the only one who says these things to sister in law. Beside that and DHs grandpa telling me I'm next for having a baby and Dh walked in and said well we cant top perfection and looked at niece lol. Otherwise mostly quite.

[floridakat]

I avoided the family issues by not inviting my problem brother. Unfortunately my parents couldn't come because my dad's sick and his chemo knocked his white blood cell count way down so he couldn't be around crowds this year, plus Marlowe and I were sporting colds. But we had 25 people for dinner, guests in our house from 2:30pm to almost midnight, tons of good food, a champagne toast and I sent the stragglers home with homemade turkey soup that I started as soon as dinner was done. :-)

[MrsAxilla]

Nov 27, 2012 14:15:31 GMT -5 @abbycobb said:

H's uncle is in fact dating a stripper after going through a mini mid-life crisis. I think she's in her 20's though, which might be okay if he wasn't 50.

Oh, and FIL was rushed to the ER twice the day before Thanksgiving - diagnosed with a blood clot in his lung. He was in so much pain he had to spend Thanksgiving day in the hospital. We came in with his turkey dinner to visit and he was pissy as hell because he hadn't had a cigarette in almost 12 hours, he wanted to go home, the nurses kept poking him, etc. Not that I blame him for being a little crabby, but he did apologize later, and is doing fine now. Ah, the memories...

Wait - he has a clot in his lung and is bitching about not smoking?!? Good grief!