A loss of the innocence of childhood holidays.

I used to like holidays. Loved them actually. I looked forward to them with the usual gusto of a child.

And then I turned 7.

I came to realize not that holidays are really only times when the consumer driven media push sales of products you don't need or want, which they are, but that holidays are times of decisions. I've always hated making decisions. Difficult decisions that divide already divided families. Which parent will I spend the holiday with?

To be honest, my father never really had a fair chance. My mother always had the unfair advantage of having a token seat at my grandmother's table. She always unabashedly played this card, and she always won with it. Thus faced with yet another loss in the game of 'Who does Anna Love more?' my father did what he does best, Making me feel insanely guilty.

So as an adult I've decided to take control. For Thanksgiving last year I cooked. I called my uncle and my aunt and reserved my gramma and demanded my father stay sober and play pretty. Then I got in such a horrid fight with my mother the day before that I informed her never to set foot in my house ever again lest she want to suffer the wrath of a tired, frustrated woman who spent 2 days and an inordinate amount of money cooking a meal that her whole family could enjoy. I didn't mention the purely selfish reason that I simply wanted to have at least one holiday in a calendar year when I didn't feel guilty for abandoning one parent or the other.

For what it's worth, it actually went pretty well. I took a nap later that day and slept the sleep of the dead.

So here is today, yet another holiday. For this occasion I decided that I would do the only other option that would work. I'd do the admirable thing and avoid them both. Hence now they're both pissed and I feel guilty all over again.

And they've both told me about it multiple multiple times. I think they're colluding with one another. They had a phone conference this morning in which they said:

"Anna is probably planning on having fun
today. We're bored so it's automatically her responsibility to entertain us. Let's call her and remind her. I'll get the even hours and you get the odd...That way she won't have even a minute's peace."

It's working.