Tuesday 23 December 2014

Ho Ho Home for the Holidays


Sullen Family Members: The Gift that
Keeps on Giving, All Year Long
It's two days until Christmas (J-1 as they say here in France).  Shortly, le Père Noel glissera dans la cheminée.  It's our second Christmas in Paris, and far, far from family back home.  

Read this morning on social media about a woman who has taken, over the past four years, to creating shall we say, "offbeat" holiday cards.  The back-story for "Bridget" - an apparently single woman approaching 30 - was dropped from her parents' annual Christmas cards, a decision that did not sit well with the woman:
Bridget is the youngest of five children. As her older siblings grew up and got married, they departed their parents annual cards and began sending out their own. Eventually, it was just Mom, Dad and Bridget. When Bridget's mom decided that it was awkward to have their one single adult child in their card, Bridget was left on her own. 
The cards feature photos of  "Bridget" in what (to me) appear to be increasingly sad, desperate poses.  Sitting at a table surrounded by cats, slumped over apparently drunk in a park, in a pool with the top half of a department store dummy.  And all surrounded either by empty cans of cheap beer, or swilling a full bottle of wine.  One features an expletive-laced holiday "wish" for her family.

The blog, Twitter, and Facebook-spheres are singing the praises of the hilarious, ironic, and brilliant response.

I'm not so sure.

If one reads the comments of "Bridget," she apparently was upset that, after all of her siblings got married one by one and had their own family cards, her parents decided it was a bit, well, awkward to have a Christmas card with them and their decidedly adult daughter.  This seems to have offended "Bridget."

I dunno - "Bridget" is younger than I am, but not a whole generation younger.  My own family never went in for posing in September at Sears to make family cards, but some friends' families did.  And they stopped featuring the kids when the "children" were in the early to middle teen years.  At the latest.  

Rather than finding it funny, I guess I find it a little creepy that a 30 year old woman thinks it appropriate to be in the Christmas card with "mom and dad" as if she were 8.  And she is also apparently angry at her siblings for having the audacity to grow up, move out, and get married.  (Really, what other explanation is there for lashing out at their "f*cking perfect families" and complaining that she was "kicked out" of the pictures?)

I don't think she's funny.  I don't think she's clever.  Or awesome,  Or brilliant.  All words used in the comments on various news aggregators carrying the story.

She's an entitled, petulant woman trapped in a bizarre Peter Pan fantasy of her own creation.

"Look at me!  I'm 30 and angry that my daddy won't let me be in his Christmas cards.  Oh, and I celebrate the holidays getting drunk in the woods on cheap, domestic beer." (I'm guessing: Rolling Rock).

I suspect she is not likely to challenge Dave Barry.

Thinking about it, how is a chick like this available?  Pushing 30, living at home, spoiled, petulant, needy, with serious "daddy" issues, and possibly budding alcoholism. She has "cat lady" written all over.

Any guy not rushing to sign up for that has mis-placed standards.



No comments: