How To Avoid Your Family This Holiday Season

If you don’t like hanging out with your family you’re probably either a teenager or a mistake. Which is fine. Since this is the time of year when families tend to slather themselves all over each other, it might be a little stressful for someone who just wants to chill out and jerk off or whatever it is you do. We get it: you don’t care about the ingredients in gluten-free fruit cake and/or pain is a never-ending inheritance. Fortunately, there are ways to eject yourself out of genetic claustrophobia which don’t involve knotting a noose. Here is the Yuletide guide to avoiding the people who created you:

I: BECOME A BARTENDER

Oops, you have to go make money. Humans love money. Your family will understand that this is the busiest time of the year for you, what with all the humans around. Double tips and a student loan go together like eggnog and a hogshead of rum. Tell them your duty is needed / this is why Christmas was invented. (You could also become a cop, firefighter, nurse, surgeon, truck driver, etc.)

II: GO TO THE BAR

Just be the drunk. Everyone knows that alcohol is an effective way to escape reality. Plus, somebody’s gotta be the black sheep now that Druncle Steve is dead. If you do sloppily decide to show up to your family’s dinner, they will be so distorted they won’t make sense to you. Perfect! On top of that you’ll also inevitably lower their expectations for next year. No one can expect anything from a person who can’t put on a shirt properly. Extra bonus points if there are young children around; the smell of ethanol seething from your pores will erode their fragile tracheas. Turn yourself into a biohazard and enjoy the sweet air of freedom.

III: USE UNRELIABLE TRANSPORTATION

It’s where deceit and self-fulfilling prophecies come together to make a glorious, immortal baby. Snow-shoeing is festive so it can distract from the fact that you’re hours late and everyone’s already about to leave. Airplanes are always overbooked during the holidays. Volunteering to give up your seat to a stranger is an act of selflessness and so in the spirit of the season. Train stations are also crazy at this time of year, therefore you’re definitely bound to fall down a flight of stairs and get a concussion which makes you forget how to read addresses.

IV: DATE SOMEBODY

One of the most beautiful things about monogamy is the obligation of serving something that’s greater than you. Reciprocity is essential to the development of any romantic relationship, so obviously you shouldn’t stick around your own gaggle of human reflections. How else can you promise your mother a new generation of this shit? The prospect of reproducing is far more important than some inane tradition selfishly confined to one lineage. Go work on bridging the connection between two bloodlines. The longer you can go without having children the better, because grandchildren are like carrots dangling in front of a donkey’s face.

V: CONTRACT A DISEASE

Here is really where the wealth of opportunity lies. It all depends on how much of a commitment you want to make out of avoiding your family. Digestive issues, for example, can prompt an absence in any case. But colon cancer, one the other hand, will last you all year; that’s Christmas, Easter, AND your cousin’s First Communion. It could be anything, really. You could development narcolepsy from December 20-31. Who knows. The best part is: you don’t even necessarily need to fake it. Volunteer at a hospital. Dress up like Santa and hand out presents to kids with tropical diseases. You can be thought of as a crusader at the dinner table.

VI: EAT ALONE IN THE CORNER

It’s pretty hard to interact with someone who is eating hors d’oeuvres all by themselves between two walls. If you ever find yourself at an intolerable family event, this simple transplantation will render you unapproachable and for a variety of reasons– mainly though because: it’s fucking weird. If anyone noticed you, isolated in a self-contained radius of snacks, they probably wouldn’t want to be the one to break the barrier. You can increase the probability of this response by wearing clothes that add to the effect of alien-like disassociation. Don’t know where to start? Google serial killers. Easy.

If none of these work then you can always try moving across the planet. Most of our ancestors have had to fuck off in much the some way, hence North America. Immigration might just be the best option for you at this point, ie. Do they know it’s Christmas time in Africa? Let’s fucking hope not!