Late in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, someone posted on our local freecycle board, offering a huge quantity of party food. She had bought it all in for a New Year party, but her eight week old baby was sick so she had to go to hospital and the party was cancelled. She posted the message when she nipped home for a change of clothes, and said that her neighbour would deal with the responses.
A short while later, the neighbour posted to say that the party food had been taken by a local charitable organisation, and to thank all the people who had sent messages of support to the original poster – a complete stranger to all of them.
That’s what Christmas should be about; not driving hundreds of miles to spend a couple of days in a small house with people who don’t even like you.
Happy New Year.
Your family doesn’t like you? That’s sad. My family likes me, and I like them, so we don’t generally mind driving hundreds of miles or putting up with slightly cramped accommodation. We’ve had fun (apart from a horrible lurgy but there’s always something).
Karen’s being facetious.
The vast majority of her family likes her.
It was more a case of going off you briefly due to very poor timing and extraordinarily murky communication. It’s much easier to be charitable when strangers are involved. There’s no baggage.