How to make your house guests unhappy

[Aislin]

I am not a big holiday person. My family typically has a low key Christmas. This year it is my husbands turn to chose what we do. We returned to his spawning ground for a traditional Christmas. This involves staying with family and friends. Here are some hints on what not to do.

Forget to inform your medically fragile guest you have "some sort of bug" that your "grandchild picked up" at preschool and you're "positive" you can't be contagious. Make sure to tell them 12 hours in to their visit. After you have coughed in their face a bunch. Particularly if hey had other options. Be upset when they get sick.

If you have fleas, bed bugs, and/or ticks, invite guests to stay the night. Don't inform them until they a) find a critter on you pet b) and/or have to have you remove one or more that have burrowed under/into their skin. Bonus points if they don't find the tick till they left to their next location.

If your guests has dietary/medical restrictions, ignore them. Even if you were informed in advance, even if that person offers to cook, help, or purchase food. Try to feed them their allergy foods. Act insulted when they decline. Get mad if they eat food they brought from home. When picking a restaraunt get upset when the person cannot eat, or only has one option. Yell at the waitstaff as if they designed the menu.

Three different house holds.

The list so far. Halfway thru this trip.
This is why I don't get into the holiday spirit.

[wolfie]

Actually, I thought that this sort of stuff would make you want to get into the holiday "spirit" - specifically the rum in the eggnog.

[darkroxas45]

Actually, I thought that this sort of stuff would make you want to get into the holiday "spirit" - specifically the rum in the eggnog.

or Jager like some of our family friends last night

[Aria]

Um... wow. Time for hotels? The bug thing... That's the worst although the sickness thing is really bad.

The thing about food issues really ticks me off, though. My sister is vegetarian and one of my brother in laws has nut allergies. We go to so much effort to make sure there's lots of good stuff for everyone to eat. This year I got a tree-nut free cake from the french bakery. I'd have LOVED their pistachio one but that would have been rude, getting something he couldn't eat.

[protege]

1. Insist that the TV be on the entire time your guests--who have children 3-6 years old--and insist that the TV be tuned to such riveting "sports" as golf, tennis, or (shudder) bowling.

2. Insist that when the TV is on, everyone is to shut up and watch.

3. Scream at 3 to 6-year old children because they're "interrupting" the "action."

4. Ignore the "wish list" of the children. Instead, get them things that they don't want...like those little battery-powered devices to remove the fuzz off of sweaters.

...and now you know what Christmas Eve at my paternal grandparents was like

[KuariKaydrith]

Back when I was still on speaking terms with my parents and we used to go there for Christmas I could be guaranteed the following:

1) a screaming match by noon caused by my mother picking at me over anything under the sun until I finally tried to walk away from her bullshit
2) a plate or piece of cutlery thrown at me from across the table because I wasn't rising to my mother's bait over the dinner table
3) a day spent trying to help with dinner but getting yelled at for not doing something right...even though I did it the exact same way she did, or if I avoided the kitchen I would get yelled at for being a lazy bitch who never contributes anything to the family
4) get told that I wasn't working hard/fast enough while cleaning up after dinner was over with - even though most of the time I already had the pots soaking so they'd be easier to clean.

Christmas was always so tense with my family that it was no wonder that my son and I stopped going as soon as we had the opportunity. I couldn't afford the drive or bus ride four hours away from home (I could, but they didn't have to know that) and even though my parents offered to pay for my son's bus ticket - never mine - he refused to go if I wasn't going to be there. This is our ninth Christmas with the ever so handy excuse of living on the other side of the country that even if I was on speaking terms with my family there is no way we could afford it. Plus, my mother refuses to step foot in the province my son and I live in. Win-win all around for us!

[eltf177]

The sickness is the worst for me. Now sometimes it's last minute and can't be helped, but if you've known for several days prior to the visit you're either sick or have been exposed you owe it to your guests to inform them so they can either cancel or try and get a hotel room.

Had an uncle who was REALLY into model railroading, had a huge setup all over his backyard. Couldn't go see it as I had a cold, he suffered from asthma and couldn't afford to be exposed to me. I wasn't happy about it but understood...

Show your guests some consideration!

[KellyHabersham]

4. Ignore the "wish list" of the children. Instead, get them things that they don't want...like those little battery-powered devices to remove the fuzz off of sweaters.

My relatives could be bad about stuff like that, particularly when it came to clothes.....it was usually either the wrong size, or not a style I would wear.

[XCashier]

The thing about food issues really ticks me off, though. My sister is vegetarian and one of my brother in laws has nut allergies. We go to so much effort to make sure there's lots of good stuff for everyone to eat. This year I got a tree-nut free cake from the french bakery. I'd have LOVED their pistachio one but that would have been rude, getting something he couldn't eat.

Consideration towards everyone goes a very long way. The holidays are supposed to be a time of happiness and family love, not one-upping, ridicule or other jerkass behavior. It's a pity that some people have to always have center stage spotlight, and others have to suffer for it.

[Sunshine]

My ex's parents are bad about assuming because lil ray is female, that she likes pink, frilly things. She hasn't liked pink in five years, in fact her favorite color is neon green. So when she comes back from their house, we go through her new stuff and donate the items she doesn't want. Makes us feel good to help out another kiddo.

[Kittish]

Ugh, the bugs thing would have had me packed up and gone inside an hour. Ick! *shudders* Not only that, but if it's bedbugs, then everything you brought into that house (including clothes and shoes being worn while there) would need to be fumigated and thoroughly cleaned before you took it back into YOUR house, as bedbugs are extremely easy to spread and damned hard to get rid of if you do wind up with them in your house. I've told people who mentioned they have bedbugs in their home to get out of mine before (not an invited guest, a random person who had showed up to look at furniture for sale and mentioned in passing that the rash she had visible was caused by bedbugs).

[protege]

My relatives could be bad about stuff like that, particularly when it came to clothes.....it was usually either the wrong size, or not a style I would wear.

I can understand getting a size wrong, especially if like my maternal grandmother...you have trouble reading the tags. Towards the end of her life, she was going blind. I get that. But my dad's parents? They were just cheap. Christmas is one of two times a year (the other being birthdays) where we could ask for anything we wanted--toys, books movies, etc.--so to have someone insist on giving us those stupid fuzz removers--was seen as insulting.

As to the "bedbug situation" I don't know about the rest of you, but I would have been out of there pretty damn quick. Or, I'd have tossed anyone potentially bringing those nasty critters into my home.

[MoonCat]

Well, this all makes my family tension seem less icky. My sympathies to everyone.