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Home for the Holidays
The Conspiracy Theory Christmas: A Merry family melee and mass meltdown
Sometimes the only way to survive a family war is to be Switzerland
“I’m sorry!” she yells. My wife is standing, her hands splayed on the dining room table, and the chair is pushed back against the wall. “But you are all effing crazy!!”
Everyone stops talking, and the room falls silent.
“It’s Christmas dinner, for God’s sake!” The shockwave from my diminutive wife’s outburst washes across the dining room table, and as though finding myself standing in the calm and quiet eye of a hurricane, I brace for impact.
“Excuse me. I apologize,” she huffs, swallowing anger and choking back tears. “I can’t listen to any more of this. Please excuse me.”
Heads turn as we watch my wife shimmy her way behind chair backs around the table until she exits to the mud room, dons her winter wear, and heads outside.
My sister to me: “Oh, oh. We blew up little Brenda. Sorry.”
My mother: “Vat izz da von for dis heesteee? (Hungarian word for “spazz-out.”)
Brother-in-law: “We may have gotten a little excited. Sorry. But — we’re not wrong, you guys don’t know the truth!”
