Breaking up is bad, but breaking up around Christmas is really bad. Like ‘sympathy from every single person in the family’ bad. A few years ago, a cousin of mine broke up with her boyfriend. They’d been dating for two years and she didn’t take it very well. I mean it was heart wrenching for all of us just hearing about. He could’ve waited until after Christmas. Didn’t Christmas gifts mean anything?
Okay I’m not being very tactful or nice about this. I was seriously upset about it when it happened but my sympathy died in the days leading up to that Christmas. I mean she milked that break-up for all it was worth. We were bringing her Christmas gift baskets and cookies every day. And then she started delegating us her Christmas shopping. Almost everyone was running gift errands for her. My sympathy was holding up fairly well. I tried to get her to buy some of her Christmas holiday gifts online and showed her some of my favorite sites in the name of ‘Family Ties’ and ‘blood being thicker than water’ and stuff. So what killed my compassion? I had graciously allowed her to use my laptop for her online browsing.
And she went browsing into my things! She came across my list of ideas for some Unique Christmas gifts. I’d been developing that list since October! And she copied all of it! Imagine me sitting and planning and beating up my brain finding unique Christmas gifts that fall in my budget and she goes and poaches them all! She was absolutely shameless about it. And since we have a ‘no fighting at Christmas’ rule in the family I couldn’t do anything. I got her a gift certificate for her Christmas gift, it was the only way I could vent my frustration. I’d been planning on sending her one of those Christmas fruit baskets because she loves them, but I can only be so generous.
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