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that jolly feeling Holiday gatherings. Today was the first one of the season that I attended. I think that the office holiday party was two Saturdays ago, but I didn't bother with it. School was more important to me at the time and oddly enough spending a few hours in the campus library was much more enjoyable to me than pretending to be having a good time with people from work. Oh, I like the people from my department, but obviously not all of them were going to be there and office parties never made that much sense to me. I am not a boot licker or ladder climber so that eliminates the primary reason that most people go. Nor do I feel the need to blend my personal life with my business one. The two of them should not mix. Back to the party that I went to this afternoon. It was being given by my mother's side of the family and it was about the same as it is every year. What I mean to say is that I only recognize about six people and those people would be my aunt and five cousins. The rest of the crowd are strangers to me. To be fair the rest of the crowd would be my cousins other side of the family, but that doesn't really help me that much. Only seeing said cousins and aunt, once or twice a year doesn't really make the connection between us that strong either. My mom might keep in contact with them more than on these holidays events, but for me it's pretty much limited to these two days out of the year. I should also explain that my aunt was married to my uncle who died the same year that I was born. So she isn't a blood relative and neither are two of my cousins that came from a second marriage. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that fact, but all of the other people at the party were relatives of this second uncle who I never really knew that well. To give me something to use as a conversation starter, I brought my Europe photos with me. Doing that was definitely a success. ... Midway through the party two older women approached me. One of them asked me if I had ever worked at a certain insurance company and I said that I had. As soon as I said that I had, I recognized her and I think that she finally remembered me. Soon we were asking about various people that we knew while we there and what had happened to them after the company was bought out. Talking with them was very odd. They were the sisters of my aunt's second husband and I didn't know that until today. I had spent three years at that company never knowing that somewhat distant relatives worked there. Of course this also shows how well I know this secondary branch on my family. ... When seeing my photos of Venice, the husband of one of my cousins told me that the two of them had been there in May for a business trip. Their hotel was on the Grand Canal near Santa Maria Della Salute. Sigh. I want a job where they send me to Venice for a trip. It seems that he saw more Titian and Tintoretto than I did while I was there. Instead of painings I got to see a collection of Rodin scupltures. Both of us however made it to the Guggenheim museum. ... My aunt invited a Santa Claus to come to the party for the assorted children that my cousins have birthed over the years. I can understand her intentions, but I still find Santa in any form to be mildly disturbing. Let me explain. There are certain things that I will not make my children do that is if I ever sire any in the future. I will not make them sit on Santa's lap. Having to sit on a strange man's lap is not normal and should scare the hell out of them. I find the Easter bunny to be even more frightening. Rabbits should not be bigger than humans unless some kind of nasty nuclear fallout has happened. Then there is that whole matter of "cute" mascots running around at various theme parks. Creatures with giant heads really annoy me and I would think that they must be even more disturbing to small children. I guess that the theory is that children should relate to them better because they have larger eyes just like children seem to have when they are very small. From what I understand the human eye is the same size when we are born and it isn't until we get older that the proportion to the rest of the head seems more natural. I will never ever let a clown get close to them. Clowns are evil and deserve their very own circle in hell. I guess that chilren are supposed to like bright colors, but I often feel that they are more prone to induce seizures. I will not make them beg for candy from strangers. Other people refer to this as trick or treating, but I still think that its odd. If I remember correctly, I went trick or treating twice when I was child. That was two times too many. I will not subject my child to watching a parade. As a child I thought that they were the most boring thing on the planet and never understood why I had to go sit on the edge of the street and gawk at strangers. Maybe this makes me sound like a dull if not horribly poor future father, but I have no desire to traumatize my child. On the other hand I can see myself dragging them across the country with me, because I loved it when my parents did that with my siblings and me when we were little. Oh, the car might have been cramped and full of arguments, but I'll never forget all of the places that I saw when I was young. It was from those trips that I developed my love for travel. Yes, I was a very odd child, which might explain why I am the way that I am today. With my luck, I'll have children that are obsessed with Halloween and beg me to take them to amusement parks all summer long. ... There was one other unexpected benefit of the party. Being the single guy that I am, my aunt made sure that I took massive amounts of leftover food home with me. I have so much that I probably won't have to cook at all this week.
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