Christmas Tragic

 I love Christmas, or at least I try too. I don't even actually like Christmas day I love the days leading up to it, putting up the tree, decorating, and baking cookies. We go shopping for the extended family and marvel at how mystic the city looks gently covered in snow. And the snow, going outside making snowmen, and ambushing my brothers with snowballs. I love this extra family time, the traditions. No matter how dysfunctional our family is, we always pull our act together for December. But this year, no one is trying. I put up the Christmas tree while my dad sat at the computer and played sudoku as my brothers played video games, and of course mom was at work. I actually basically started crying in the middle of putting up the tree. My family has given up on each other. We are all just separate people living in the same house waiting for our chance to escape. Well if they are done faking it for the world, I'm done faking it for them.