It’s Christmas, so I’m going to write a little differently, and have every sentence in this post be in rhyme:

My dad and our family liked meat a lot, but my entitled aunt, who shall be called EA here, did not.

EA was a vegan, a plant lover, see. Any animal-based product was pure tragedy.

At no other point did she make herself clear than on Christmas Eve on the 2005th year.

My dad always held a large dinner party, our relatives ranging from bitter to hearty.

He always loved meat, whether pork, beef, or jerky, and always took pride in his Christmas turkey.

At the time, I was still a small boy, admiring my cousins’ new Hot Wheel toys.

We were watching Rudolph when all of a sudden, I heard a loud scream that could curdle one’s blood in.

We rushed to the kitchen, and there was my dad, yelling at EA, furiously mad.

Due to fuzzy memory, the quotes aren’t exact, but I fully remember the tone and the tact.

Dad: “What’s this balderdash!? Why did you put my turkey in the trash?!”

EA: *Quipped* “I threw animal cruelty away! Why must you do this before Christmas Day?!”

Dad: *Barked* “I made you a salad, you shrew! Just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean we must be, too!”

EA: *Just yelling* “You should be ashamed! Don’t you know how these turkeys were maimed?!”

Dad: “I don’t give a darn what you eat! You keep your plants, and I’ll keep my meat!”

Dad: “If you don’t like it, get out of my house!”

EA grabbed her kids, who were quiet as a mouse.

She then whispered in her huffy stroll:

EA: “Don’t worry, kids. Meat eaters get coal.”

I started crying because of the yelling, but my grandma soothed me in her voice so compelling.

We ended up ordering pizza that night. Other than the turkey, things turned out all right.

EA still came every Christmas since then, but kept her mouth shut about being vegan.

I think she especially became less of a brat when Animal Control took her “vegan” cat.

She didn’t stop us from having our Christmas feast,

And he, he himself, her son, carved the roast beast.

I grew up on a small homestead in Delaware that consisted of a house on a two-acre lot on the outskirts of a small town. We had a HUGE organic garden, chickens, dairy goats, and a large berry patch.

This happens in the mid-1990s. When I am ten, an elderly family friend and her husband decide to move to the area to retire after living in the suburbs of Long Island for most of their entire adult lives. We all call them aunt and uncle. They really don’t understand my parents’ lifestyle; my mom homeschools my sister and me and we eat fresh and home-processed foods as much as possible. We have a pretty typical life and are allowed junk food but it is usually homemade.

My aunt thinks that scratch-made foods aren’t as healthy as foods that come from the store due to some weird thing that her mother taught her during World War Two.

This is what happens the first Christmas that they celebrate with us. My mom decides to make homemade honey wheat bread from scratch and my “aunt” doesn’t like it.

Aunt: “I brought bread for the meal!”

She holds up two bags of Wonder Bread that are WELL past their sell-by date.

Aunt: “The church was giving these out for free!”

Mom: “I made four loaves of honey wheat bread from scratch. I ground the wheat myself and the honey came from an Amish lady that [Dad] did some work for.”

Aunt: “Why are you feeding us that garbage?! My mother taught me that the best foods are highly processed because they add vitamins to the food, and processed foods are cheaper than scratch-made foods! You are harming [Sister]’s and [My Name]’s development by not feeding them Wonder Bread!”

Mom: “Don’t you realize that the junk you brought is not only full of preservatives and chemicals, but it is well past the sell-by date? I won’t feed that to my kids!”

Aunt: “I am going to throw away your bread because Wonder Bread is better for them!”

She grabs all four loaves and tries to throw them in the garbage can.

I am watching this and, for some reason, I grab a wooden spoon at this point. I slap her hand with the wooden spoon as she tries to drop the bread into the garbage can.

Me: “No, [Aunt]! You are not going to throw away bread that my mom and I worked really hard on! This is good bread! We all hate Wonder Bread!”

My aunt stops in shock and the whole room goes silent. My mom looks like she is going to either murder me or hug me. I’m not sure if I am going to get punished or if my mom is going to thank me for intervening. 

Aunt: “I’m just trying to protect you kids from bad food! Your mother keeps feeding you foods that don’t have any vitamins in them because the food is too fresh! My mother always taught me that you should only use processed foods because they add vitamins to them. You can’t get vitamins in fresh food!”

I’m shocked that a ten-year-old knows more than a sixty-year-old. 

Me: “[Aunt], do you realize that food loses nutrients when it is processed and that fresh foods are almost always better than processed due to the high nutrient levels that naturally occur in most foods? They have to add vitamins because the manufacturing process depletes the natural nutrients in the raw ingredients! I learned that in science this year!”

I grab my science textbook from the living room and open it to the section on food science.

Me: “See, [Aunt]? Fresh food is better than processed!”

She starts to stammer.

Aunt: “Well, I never learned that! They didn’t teach that in the 1940s when I was in school! I left school when I was fourteen, so how was I supposed to know that science changed?”

She ended up dropping the subject. She actually ate several slices of the homemade bread and it looked like she liked it. She never repeated that stunt again!

‘Twas the morning of Christmas and all through the house, every family member was beginning to rouse. My cousin and I crept into the den, to see just what Santa had brought for us then. My cousin saw near my stocking a Pikachu skateboard, something he saw and decided he’d hoard.

Okay, I don’t want to keep rhyming this.

I’m spending Christmas with my entitled aunt and uncle and their kids. My little a**hole cousin sees the Pikachu skateboard and tells me he wants it.

Me: “I want a million bucks and a new car. Who died and made you God?”

The kid looks at me like I just put a parrot in a microwave — shocked and insulted yet still in awe.

Cousin: “Come on, man. You always get the cooler stuff. Look what I got, dude.”

He points to his stocking, full of candy and football stuff. He even got this year’s newest “Madden” game in there. I am in seventh grade and this kid is in fifth grade; he’s too old to cry over not getting his way on Christmas.

We creep back to his room, quietly arguing over who gets to keep the Pikachu skateboard under MY stocking.

Cousin: “You’re gonna give me that board. I’ll make you.”

Me: “Not a snowball’s chance in H***.”

We wait for our parents, grandma, and his older sister to wake up.

[Cousin] tries to act surprised at what he got for Christmas, but I don’t, because I just think it’s pointless to do that when you already know what you got. I get a good load this year, too.

[Cousin] tells his mom that he MIGHT wanna trade with me. His mother — my aunt — looks like Coraline’s mother. She turns her creepy Claymation-looking head to me.

Aunt: “Is it okay if you trade with your cousin?”

Me: “Depends. I totally want my skateboard.”

Cousin: “Well, that’s what I want.”

Me: “Eh, I’m not interested.”

Aunt: “Let’s wait until we open gifts. Then, you’ll all know what you have, and you’ll be able to change your mind.”

We open gifts. When my cousin asks AGAIN if I want to trade, I repeat myself again.

Me: “Nope, I think I’m fine with what I got.”

My mom tries to break up the situation.

Mom: “Son, go put your stuff in the car; we’re leaving after lunch.”

Cousin: *Screaming* “But I want what he got! I want that skateboard!”

He hides his face and starts acting like he’s crying. I still say no. At this point, my aunt looks at me like I farted in an elevator — offended and s*** on. My mother helps me take my stuff, grabbing the skateboard first.

Aunt: “Wait! Can I look at the skateboard? I may just go buy the same one.”

She takes a picture of it with her flip phone.

After we put all our stuff in the car, we all decided to go back to sleep — all except my younger cousin, of course. I’m sleeping on the couch.

When we wake up from our siesta, it’s near lunchtime. The sandwiches that my mother and nana make at Christmas time are unlike anything else. Paired with pineapple pie, it’s like a party in your mouth.

I ask where my cousin is; his mother says he’s at a friend’s house playing football.

While we’re all eating, my cousin walks into the house. He’s got this LOOK on his face like he’s accomplished a difficult feat. He says he isn’t hungry. Okay, that’s weird coming from him; he almost always has an empty stomach. He avoids eye contact with me. I get suspicious, so I get up to look in the car to see if anything is missing.

Cousin: “No, wait!”

I open the car door. Apparently, [Cousin] took the car keys from my mom’s purse and unlocked the car with it, and he took my skateboard. But he didn’t just skate on it! He had, somehow and I don’t know how, managed to break the thing in TWO. And he thought I wouldn’t notice it if he tried to tape it back together with electrical tape. I was pissed, and I cried.

My cousin always has this “if I can’t have it, nobody can” motto. I’ve never wanted to hurt someone so badly before in all my life.

Moral of the story: don’t let your kid be like Dudley Dursley.

This story was told to me by my mother when I was older, but she still laughs about it today. 

When I was eighteen months old, I had my front four teeth removed due to an underlying condition. This occurs a few months later, after I have begun to learn how to speak. My grandma is watching me for the day, and one of our outings for the day is to take my uncle to work.

We are heading down the Trans-Canada Highway, which is always populated by semi-trucks. I am fascinated with these massive trucks and start pointing at them. Unfortunately, my uncle and grandma are having a conversation, and I am upset that they aren’t paying attention to me. After some time, this happens:

Me: “Gan’na!”

Grandma: “Hold on a second, [My Name]; your uncle and I are talking.”

Me: “But Gan’na!”

Grandma: *Sighs* “What is it?”

I point to a large car carrier that is carrying a bunch of pick-up trucks.

Me: “Look! F***s!”

My grandma gasps and my uncle bursts into laughter.

Grandma: “[My Name]! Where did you hear that word?!”

Me: “F***s?”

Grandma: “No! Stop saying that! You say it again and there will be no more Barney!”

Uncle: *Through tears and his cackles of laughter* “Mom, he’s saying, ‘Trucks’! He has no teeth, remember?!”

Grandma: “He shouldn’t be saying that dirty, filthy word!”

Uncle: “He can’t help it if he doesn’t have any teeth!”

Luckily, I went to speech therapy when I was old enough, and even though I still sometimes have a slight lisp and have to think about how to say a word before speaking, at least I don’t call trucks “F***s” anymore.

One of my uncles goes by his middle name, except with his wife. My aunt calls him by his first name, instead, and she’s the only one who does; it’s almost like her equivalent of calling him “Darling” or “Honey.”

One family Thanksgiving, a few months after my aunt and uncle get married, I overhear this bit of conversation between my grandmother (my uncle’s mom) and my uncle. I think it isn’t the first time they’ve had this discussion.

Grandmother: “I just don’t understand, [Uncle’s Middle Name]. Why does [Aunt] say [Uncle’s First Name] instead of [Uncle’s Middle Name]?”

Uncle: “That’s just what she likes to do.”

Grandmother: “But no one else does. Why does she call you [Uncle’s First Name]?”

Uncle: *Slightly exasperated* “Because that’s what you named me, Mom.”

It’s been years, and I have yet to hear my grandmother bring up the topic again!