Rant ahead, be warned.

Someone once said that Christmas was supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. Someone was full of shit.

I’m one of those who have kept in touch with the friends I made in high school. We’re not a big group, only about six of us, but we make the time in our lives to see one another. Some of us live further away, and up until now, we’ve honoured a small tradition for Christmas: coming together to have a nice meal in pleasant company and exchanging gifts.

Well, tradition landed right on its ass tonight.

And here I thought the drama in my family would be all I’d have to handle. Hell.

One of my friends lives a long ways away, about three to four hour worth of driving. We’ll call her Marcie. Because of this, the amount we get to see her and her husband (call him Ryan) has dropped off dramatically. Where we would once see one another on most weekends, we now see one another as a group maybe once or twice per year. I see her a little more often than the rest of our small group does, but even so, the number of times we’ve seen one another this year is maybe five. And this is only due to two weddings in the year.

For the past month, we’ve been planning our Christmas gathering, planning out who would bring what dish for the potluck, how we would do the gift exchange, etc. The date has been cemented for a while, and everyone had arranged their scheduled around showing up for the event. For my part, issue comes up in the fact that my work hours are about as random as a Douglas Adams thought process, but even so, I managed to plan out going. And I was, go figure, looking forward to the assembly of peers.

Marcie and Ryan had already made the long drive up to our city, and were staying with mutual friends.

Tonight was the planned night, and rather last minute, we heard a few more people would be coming. Our usual group, including significant others, is around nine or ten people. Well, the number increased to fourteen, and this is where shit hit the fan…

Ryan decided tonight (about half an hour before the event was slated to begin) that he was “not in the right state of mind to deal with that many people” and outright refused to attend. We offered several solutions, including hanging around him exclusively in order to ease any social distress. We were immediately shot down. My husband offered to drive even just Marcie down, and let it be noted that we never heard Ryan even make this offer, as he excused himself tersely from further discussion and hung up.

Let’s recap, where does this leave us?

Well, two of the people we had taken into special account for this event are no longer attending because, to paraphrase, they “don’t wanna.” Wow, how terribly mature of you both. Now you’re disappointing the entire group of people looking forward to seeing you and lacing the air of the whole event with resentment. Awesome.

I state my annoyance to the “don’t wanna” with an (I’ll admit snarky) reply of “that’s a weak ass excuse.”

Marcie texts me saying that she “isn’t going to discuss this over text” and I retort with a pointed, “Well, you’re sure as Hell not doing so in person.”

I’m then informed that I “can be pissed then.”

Why thank you so much! I totally wanted your approval to be annoyed with your childish and selfish behavior! Of course I’m not vindicated simply by benefit of sucking it up and acting like a real adult! For crap’s sake...

Let’s also mention that our hostess had heard about none of this (changed cell numbers or something) and it was left to me to explain why the friend who usually carpools with me isn’t coming. This left our hostess upset, because she had put a ton of work into the whole evening, and was told that her friends would rather stand up her efforts than be bothered to show up.

I don’t reply to the text, knowing that my responses will get truly unpleasant if I continue in my present state of mind. I resign myself to the fact that one of my best friends has ditched out on a once a year event and proceed to enjoy the Hell out of the party.

For an hour, anyways…

I notice after a moment that my phone is buzzing, and unlock it to find I’ve been sent a voicemail. I notice that Ryan is the one that sent it, and sigh before listening.

Just what I needed, blame for Marcie now bawling in a bathroom! Three minutes worth of Ryan’s voice bitterly going on about how I “should be proud” of myself, and that I “should be more understanding.” The remainder of the message contained personal information I won’t repeat, as I have respect for the speaker’s privacy. In short, apparently Marcie wanted to go, and I was only making her feel bad.

Really? Firsty, from my perspective (and that of the friends who bothered to show up), I’m not the one who made a royal fuckery of the evening, and we at least presented options instead of shooting every damn option down. Secondly, she should only feel bad and be crying if she knew what the impact of her absence would be. Don’t blame me for her being upset, I conveyed the group attitude. How she took it was not my doing.

I conveyed the content of the voicemail to those who deserved it, and heard from our hostess the message of, “Well good, she should feel bad. I worked hard on tonight!”

Even though I was also originally less than jazzed for the party myself, I still sucked it up and went, at the very least. And guess what? I actually enjoyed myself! How novel!

And yeah, I’m still pissed at them leaving us hanging. I don’t see either of them enough for this kind of shit to fly. I’m annoyed as Hell that a negative attitude and outlook cost us some valuable face time with people we care about.

Merry fucking Christmas...