I can feel it a-coming, like a bad case of diarrhea

I know I am an ingrate on nearly every level of my being. I get it and accept it. Nevertheless, every year around the end of November I start to get fidgety at the thought of spending the holidays with my family. This is where one might call me an ungrateful bitch, but nobody can because of the disclaimer I inserted above. I love my family, I really do. But I am around them. A Lot. And I know that the thought of trying to celebrate something with them that I just don’t feel is a lost cause. So that is why this year I have decided to flea the Manor for Christmas. Thanksgiving was bad enough and I just can’t do the Big One on December 25. So I have decided to travel South to Dixie to spend a few days with my childhood chum Kelly-Lynn and her life partner The Bird and their wee spawn John-Kelly.
Last year was our first Christmas without my dad. It was long, hard and hurt in the way that a bad stomach flu hurts. This year Thanksgiving was much of the same. None of us wanted to cook or make any unnecessary effort towards celebrating, thus the Mexican restaurant turkey platter sprinkled with spicy beef. This will also be my first Christmas away from the children. So I would rather check my bags and flee than stay and face a Christmas morning without Devon wrapping himself around my neck or Cassidy waking me up qt 4 a.m. to open presents or Loren yakking on and on and on about snowboarding tricks. I hope to stay up late drinking wine, sleep in and not hear any family fights. If I focus on that then maybe the next 28 days won’t be so grueling. Of course maybe I’m just in a bitchy mood from another day of the stomach flu….