A Very Deciblog Xmas Day II: The Relative I Only See During the Holidays Who Hates Me Most

Welcome to The Five Days of Deciblog Christmas, in which we corral your favorite extreme heroes into revealing embarrassing and hilarious holiday anecdotes. Consider it free bonus footage as you prepare to give Amazon half your paycheck because you’re too lazy to support local businesses. On day two, after the jump, we bring you “The Relative I Only See During the Holidays Who Hates Me Most.”

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DAVID HALL, filmmaker MARYLAND DEATHFEST: THE MOVIE
My uncle-in-law RULES. I only get a chance to see him at Christmas, but he refuses to talk to me because of some… unpleasantness a few years ago. First off, he’s at least 500 pounds, drives a rig (he once told me “I know I killed at least one man with my truck”) and, as I had heard with delight for many years through various family members, he falls asleep on the toilet. A LOT. Six Christmases ago, after a massive turkey dinner, I overheard my wife complaining to her mother that “someone has been in the bathroom for at least an hour.” “Oh, Uncle X probably fell asleep in there,” my mother-in-law responded. I knew this was my chance. I grabbed my phone and quickly dashed to the washroom.
The door was unlocked and I slowly opened it and peered in: to my horror and delight, Uncle X was passed out, shirt off for some reason, with his sleeping, lifeless head sagged backwards against the bathroom wall. I hit record on my phone’s video camera. The stench was unbearable. After a few moments, he suddenly snorted and opened his eyes. Busted. “Fuck are you doing?” he asked me in a post-poo, sleepy haze. I ran away as fast as I could. My wife later made me delete the footage in front of my uncle and, to this day, every Christmas, he just ignores me. Probably for the best.

JEREMY WAGNER, BROKEN HOPE/LUPARA, author of THE ARMAGEDDON CHORD
I’d say this one specific uncle of mine who wrote me a scathing and mean-spirited review of The Armageddon Chord. I used to like him, but after his surprise attack on me as a writer and how he horribly trashed my book, I don’t care for him all that much. Moreover, when I retorted to his vile summary and straightened his ass out so badly, that ended any connection we had. So, I’m confident there won’t be any holiday celebrating between us ever again. *Wagner smiles*

LORD WORM, EX-CRYPTOPSY
For over 10 years now, members of my extended family have been dying, on average, at a rate of one a year (usually in springtime). We take this as our cue to gather: funeral = family reunion. It got so my godfather once said: “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” He died last year. There’s hardly anyone left. Oddly, none of them hate me.

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WILL CARROLL, DEATH ANGEL
I don’t really have that problem since all my relatives are dead, and when they were alive, I got along with all of them. There was this uncle, uncle Bob, who I despised. I remember my old band Warfare D.C. was playing at the Stone with East Bay thrash band Defiance. We were loading out of my garage (where we practiced) and it was around Christmastime, so Bob was around. He was hitting on mine and everybody else’s girlfriend and their friends. We were like 16 and he was like 50. I was mortified. What a sleazoid.

K. ALLEN WOOD, editor SHOCK TOTEM/publisher HOLIDAY TALES OF THE MACABRE AND TWISTED
No one in my family hates me. But I secretly hate most of them.

JOHN STRACHAN, EARLY GRAVES/THE FUNERAL PYRE
I see this relative frequently; it’s my aunt. She’s stuck up and, honestly, a stupid bitch. She hates the very essence of me, which is fine. I feel bad for her children.

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RICHARD CHRISTY, CHARRED WALLS OF THE DAMNED
Uncle Willie Creepyfingers. I won’t let him touch my dirty parts and he gets mad. He’s just a made-up relative, but I’m scared that one Xmas he’ll come to life and show up at my house.

JOSHUA ANDREW BELANGER, ARTIST
The relative that proclaims, “Why don’t you have a girlfriend? What is wrong with you?” Most women are insane, and any one that’ll agree to date an artist who has zero social skills and hides in a room all day drawing corpses and listening to conspiracy webcasts has to be a little fucked up. So, I’m screwed either way, and I get to hear about it Christmas morn, along with what surgeries her and all her friends have had.

DEVIN TOWNSEND
Most of my family is pretty straitlaced or does manual labor, and it usually takes the first hour to convince them that I don’t really take the attention of the job seriously and that it’s not as “entitled’ as they perceive it.