by Kale Kilgore

We celebrate Christmas at my grandmothers. All my family is here. They are getting drunk. It’s how we get along. Without the alcohol no one would be comfortable enough to talk to each other and everyone would leave early. Sometimes I think the only reason that they stay, rather than make the hour drive back home to the city, is because they are just too drunk.

God bless alcohol.
I guess.

We make our Christmas list after Thanksgiving dinner and it used to be fun a long time ago, but now it’s not.

‘I don’t want gifts this year’ I say, and no one listens.
Stop it! You scrooge!—they reply.

It’s true. I miss the days when my parents would tell me: if you don’t stop acting up Santa is going to leave you coal at Christmas. That threat would appear annually every November only to leave again January 1st until the following year. But now Christmas is just depression. I have to endure my extended family and their awkward questions about what I’m doing with my life at the moment.

And my embarrassed replies.

Did you know that December 25th is the day with the highest rate of suicide victims per annum?

I’ll survive this year.
I’ll survive.