15 Things You Need To Realize Before Going Home For The Holidays

1. That ornament with your picture in it that you made when you were 11 during your husky phase and homemade haircut is still on the tree. It’s not going anywhere, so just move it to the back of the tree when no one is looking.

2. There is some sort of evil force field that will cause you to have the worst cell phone service as soon as you walk in the door. That phone that Desmond used to call Penny wouldn’t work in your parent’s house.

3. Your parent’s shower basically has two settings: freezing cold and that stuff they dipped Arnold into at the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

4. If someone gives you a gift card to Wal-Mart just use it to buy toiletries or snacks. Don’t take the opportunity to educate them on consumerism and labor laws.

5. There are only two Home Alone movies. I don’t care what anyone else says. If someone turns on a non-Macaulay Culkin film claiming it’s Home Alone, take this time to correct the error of their ways in the most condescending way possible.

6. If you bring a new boyfriend or girlfriend home to meet your family, there is a 100% chance that someone is going to bring up at least one of your exes. There’s a 75% chance that someone is going to call your new love interest by one of your exes’ names. There’s a 65% chance that an older relative will say, “Oh I can’t keep track with all of your little boyfriends anyway.”

7. Someone, at some point, is going to do an impression of either Uncle Joey from Full House, or Borat because they just saw it on HBO. You’re not going to be able to change this, so practice your best fake laugh and die a little inside each time it happens.

8. Your childhood room is no more. Once you moved out your parents turned it into something terrible. Here are the options of what your room has become in order from least terrible to absolutely horrifying:

– Home gym where your mom gets sweaty and your dad towels her off

– A shell of your old room, without your photos, so your parents can have sex in there and not feel guilty

– A wallpapered room with a sex swing in the middle

– Your little sister’s new room where she has definitely been fingered on your old bed

9. If anyone says they’re going to turn on some Christmas music and then plays Glee: Christmas, you are completely justified in calling the police and reporting domestic terrorism.

10. If your mom asks you to go to church with her while you’re there, just do it. The Internet will still be waiting for you to discuss the snares and toils of organized religion. She birthed you, so the least you can do is go with her to watch your neighbor’s daughter sing in the choir.

11. Don’t ask your grandma if there’s gluten in her homemade fudge.

12. Also, don’t suggest your grandpa may have lived longer if she had cut gluten out of his diet, you monster.

13. Even though you’ve said a thousand times that you hate onions, your aunt is going to put them in a casserole because she thinks you won’t notice. I will notice Aunt Charlotte so stop putting the stupid onions in there!

14. Your uncle is going to state a political opinion based on something he read in a forwarded email. Don’t engage, it’s a trap.

15. Also, your cousin is going to state a political opinion based on a meme she saw on Reddit. Again, do not engage. This is an even more sinister trap.