Merry Christmas

Insert general apology for failure to update before now here.

So, what's up? I'm going to start with Christmas. I'll get on to the New Years bit later.

The boys had a good Christmas. (We don't do any religious stuff, I'm atheist-leaning agnostic, M is agnostic and prefers not to think too hard about his place in the cosmos, and J pretends she's non-practicing Catholic 'cos her mother said she would raise her daughters Catholic 'cos yay Catholosicm. Or however you spell it.) Great haul for people without a lot of spare cash. My toys were the cool ones, 'cos mine were the simple ones.

We did have to do it on Christmas Eve, firstly so I could spend it with them (I was planning on visiting my mother's side of the family on Christmas), and so that Mj could spend it with us, because he was going back to his mother's family on Christmas, too. So we woke the boys up around seven and dug out the toys.
I do remember that we had good food, but I cannot remember what it was, because it's late, and I'm resorting to Thanksgiving when I think of food.

Now, I said I was going to visit my family for Christmas. This is because I was planning on going alone. This has its practical side, of course, but it also has its painful truths and reasons and they make me angry.

See, I can't take my family home with me.
Sadly enough, not because of the polyamory. Though that's pretty odd, of course, but my family is not one nearly so discriminate against someone dating two people at once, even if those two people were dating.
But those two people would have to be male and white, and they're not. One fits one criteria, and the other fits the second, and between the two of them, introducing them as my dates would be bad, and even letting M show up would be.... It would not end well.

See, my grandfather and my uncle are horribly racist. My uncle more than my grandfather, 'cos my grandfather's more classist than racist, but those lines didn't used to be too far from one and the same. If you worked well and paid your bills, you were a man, but my uncle...
He told me a long time ago when he was helping me with my car that if I ever dated a black man, he'd take the car from me. And said a series of nasty things about darker complected human beings. (Get this,) said they were a curse upon Noah for having sex with one of his daughters, because of the incest.
There are several things wrong with this, to me, the least of which being Noah's lack of a daughter, the necessity of incest to repopulate, and the whole myth in the first place.
I do not approve. I do not agree. In fact, I told him at the time that I'd date a black man without any problems. I thought he was gonna hit me. And I also said that if he was gonna choose hate over love, that was up to him. And it is.
I'm not ashamed of my family. I'm just afraid of my uncle letting his stupid get in the way of Christmas. I have rather a large family, and the place we all meet is my grandfather's house, which is next door to my uncle's, and it just seems like a horrible idea to go provoking people there when I've got twenty people to see.

I caught a little flack, being honest about this, and most of the response is "Fuck those racist assholes". And I completely agree. And I have. Because I'm dating him anyway, aren't I? If they had their way I wouldn't be. If they had their way, I'd probably be married by now. And, like I said, don't wanna upset the hosts of the party, even if they're not the ones I'm there to see.

I told everyone I hadn't told yet. I didn't realize I hadn't told one of my sisters. Mom's still uncomfortable. I wish I could talk to her more about it, but I got baby brained while I was there (speaking of which, I need quiet alone time. I haven't had much since.... forever.), and I started talking about L and milestones, and talking about J's post-partum depression, and slowly but surely, she's getting more used to the fact. Now that she knows it's less... weird, I guess.

So far, my dads have dealt with it the best. They both just nodded and said, "Okay."

(Really, I didn't expect this to feel so normal, either. It's just so easy. I have no basis of comparison, but it really is just so easy. For me. It has its moments, of course.)

The boys are still too little to really get excited about Christmas. I can't wait for them to start grasping bigger concepts and getting more excited about stuff. Not looking forward to the shouting, but it's going to be so cute.

I wish I could talk more about our family's Christmas together, but honestly, it was really downplayed, really simple, and really easy. Simple introduction into Christmas with little kids. I know it'll get more.... enthusiastic, but honestly, it wasn't the reaction I was hoping for. I'll wait.