(1) “I’m Getting the Silent Treatment for Christmas”

Christmas at my house is always an event. Even though it isn’t our holiday (we somewhat pathetically celebrate Hanukkah), we still manage to follow the same patterns of behavior every year, and it usually goes something like this:

Love me some CSI: Miami's Natalia Boa Vista and her ever-present white pants.

Everyone sleeps in before rolling out of bed around 10 a.m., after a night out spent eating Chinese food, drinking wine and watching CSI:Insert City Here.We spend the rest of our morning relaxing in the living room before three o’clock rolls around, then we head on over to my stepmother’s parents’ house about an hour away from ours.

Once we have reached our destination on Greentree Lane in Narberth, Pennsylvania, the traditions continue. My stepmother and I usually escape for a quick photo op in the “dog bathroom” (otherwise known as the “bathroom with the good lighting”), before joining the rest of the family for M&M appetizers in the den. While everyone catches up with one another, I usually sit on the cream leather sofa and admire the copius amounts of model cars, paper files, eight-track tapes, VHS stacks, magazines and old photographs, and secretly wish I could explore the two storage rooms/attics of the house that hasn’t seemed to age since 1975.

After appetizers and small talk, we enjoy an elaborately crafted meal of cold cuts and chocolate chip cake, followed by more casual conversation in the den. Around 8 p.m. we pile back into the car and head on home to Bucks County.

Regardless of whether or not some of the details change from year-to-year (ETA, type of deli meat served), one thing always remains the same; My family absolutely, without a doubt cannot spend a Christmas day without seriously fighting about how we are spending our Christmas day.

I personally think their behavior is absolutely ridiculous; we do the exact same thing every year. Yet my dad and younger sister cannot seem to understand the concept of spending Christmas day with people who care about you. Even if you don’t want to do it, you just do.

Mixing up our annual photo: Instead of taking it in the "bathroom with the good light," we just went outside and took it in the good light.

It’s almost like they have never seen a movie about Christmas before (i.e.: Home for the Holidays and The Family Stone). News flash! No one seems to want to be there! But if the fictional characters in the movies can suck it up for one whole day, then so can you.

The worst part about it though, is that my dad and younger sister feel as if it is okay to punish my stepmother and me for “making them attend” something they seem to hate. And no matter how much we try to convince them it’s okay to not attend (almost better in fact if they don’t, so my stepmother and I aren’t suffering as a result of their child-like behavior), they insist on coming and insist on ignoring us all day long.

It’s pathetic.

I hope one day they will learn to enjoy life and enjoy spending Christmas with our family, instead of walking around with sourpusses on their faces.

Until that happens — while you all are receiving bicycles, tricycles and icicles for Christmas —  I will be receiving my annual gift of silence.