The Five Things We Hate About Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa) Dinner

dane brian Flickr

As a general rule, we're big fans of the holidays. Why? Because they involve eating gut-busting quantities of homemade food, scoring paid time off from work and drinking what would generally be unacceptable amounts of booze.

But let's be honest - there are certain things about the holiday season that suck, most of which are common to all of our dysfunctional family gatherings. If that weren't the case, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation wouldn't inspire so many LOLs.

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So in the spirit of commiseration, we thought we'd compile a list of the five things we all hate about Christmas (or your holiday of choice) dinner.

5. Your baby-hungry grandma.
You're 35, single and childless. And dammit, you like your uninterrupted sleep and buckets of disposable income. But your grandma, stuck in the days of Leave it to Beaver, has other ideas. And she's not afraid to share them. If you hear, "When are you going to settle down and make me a grandbaby?" one more time you might vomit creamed corn all over her china.

mhaller1979 Flickr

4. Your brother's raw food-only, gluten-free, vegan girlfriend.
We're all for animal rights and healthy eating, but around the holidays, the uber-picky, random invitees who bitch incessantly about the dangers of wheat are the WORST. It's one thing to stick solely to salad - it's another thing to ruin everyone else's dinner with your self-righteous whining. Put a lid on it, at least during Christmas dinner.