Let's be Christmas back home in Flyoverstan.

I'm the extra-tacky Christmas sweater sporting a Trump 2020 button, worn just to bait you, Nancy Boy!

I’m the dry lasagna, overly ambitious casserole and basket of King’s Hawaiian rolls wrapped in a checkered towel to appear homemade.

I'm the canned cranberry gel AND the homemade cranberry-orange-pecan relish side by side.

You can guess who voted for whom by watching who takes what.

I'm the brother from NY who thinks they're much better then everyone else because I live in NYC. In reality I'm glad to be home because the city is a soulless sucking void devoid of any human companionship.

I'm the teenage niblings bored to tears, texting their friends on social media and wishing they were anywhere else but at home with their parents and relatives today.

I’m your sister’s new boyfriend giving you the eye. Am I just curious because I’ve never met a real gay before, or will you be blowing me in the powder room?

I'm the metaphorical elephant in the room. Maybe a whole herd of them. Topics that are off limits before, during and after Christmas dinner. The weather (but not climate change) is discussed, along with crop rotation, who died, who got divorced, etc. are safe topics so the elephants don't stampede.

I'm the Patti Labelle Sweet Potato Pie, hastily brought for the black guest one of the kids is currently dating. After two courtesy slices are eaten from me, I'll be quickly thrown out the following morning.

I'm the hotdish!

I'm gloppy and mysterious!

I'm the deflated "decorations" on the neighbor's lawn.

I'm the late teens/early 20s cousins slipping out to smoke weed.

I'm the inflatable mattress you'll sleep on in the guest/office/gym room. I'm wedged between a dusty nordic track and a desk with an outdated, unplugged computer tower and storage boxes on top of it.

I'm Cool Whip.

And I'm reality here to say that you grew up in 'Flyoveristan' and despite your pompous claims of being a "New Yorker', you are just another one of a 10 million poseurs.

I’m the copious amounts of Xanax needed to tolerate a group of people with an average IQ of 38.

I'm your clinically depressed mother. I've decorated the house to within an inch of its life, but I'll spend the day sighing dramatically about how Christmas just "isn't like it used to be." But then, YOU wouldn't understand because YOU have such a nice life, DON'T YOU?

I'll call you two days after Christmas to cry about how you weren't sufficiently grateful for the gifts I gave you, too.

I'm here for the day. Only because American won't circle over DFW for a couple of hours this afternoon.

They can't believe I flew in this morning and I'm flying out tonight. And I think my Uber is here...

I love R17.

I'm the question asked usually by an older male relative, "still livin' in New York (or Chicago or L.A. or some bigger town a few hours away, etc.)?" that is not followed up with any other questions because you still living in that bigger town or city tells him everything he needs to know.

I'm the cousin missing the family party because I'm in rehab after catching my wife fucking the best friend of my teenage son.

I’m my mother’s older sister, Auntie Marsha Jane, named after two different Hollywood stars whom nobody can remember, who asks me loudly during dinner, “Now why aren’t you married yet?”

The silence that follows is brief, but telling.

I’m the invitation to the Sunday morning Christmas service at your childhood church, and I am politely rejected every year by Sodomites, such as yourselves.

Soon, the church’s pastor, who is a suspected pederast, will show up with the holiday pies his wife Didi baked, and insist on hoisting all the kids in the house under the age of 10, onto his lap, just like he did with you, when you were 8. That’s when he’ll deploy me again, insisting you all come to the magnificent service, while using me as a distraction to hide is now semi erection while your youngest son is fighting to squirm away from the pervert’s lap, just like you used to!

Traditions are nice, aren’t they?

I am my mother asleep in her recliner. Merry Christmas.

I am your cousin that insists that you go out to shoot some squirrels with him in the back forty, and swigs from a gallon jug of wine.

Sounds like Christmas in every area of the country.

I will be the empty wine boxes sitting on top of the over-stuffed garbage can. On trash day the Gladys Kravitzes in the neighborhood will shake their heads and mutter about how trashy the place is getting as they get a good look at me from behind their Dusty (and tacky) curtains.

I am that casserole made from frozen shredded potatoes, Velveeta cheese and Campbell's cream of something soup.

I am the Jell-O mold salad in the shape of a wreath made with orange Jell-O, shredded carrots and raisins sitting on a bed of curly lettuce.

Lol, you tried it, R4.

r4 has failed to get laid in the big wicked city.

Actual report from Flyoverstan today (visiting "friends of the family" — aka people my mom knows):

- Those fiber-optic-lit colored Santas and Christmas trees are still the rage (2 of the 2 houses we visited)

- Flyoverstan is positively, totally, completely addicted to chemical "scents" more than they are opioids. Cinnamon sticks on coffee tables in some goddamn fake-smelling oil. Glade Plug-Ins. Yankee Candle ripoffs all alight and competing for your nose's attention. Someone got a "winterberry oil" stocking stuffer and was passing it around so everyone could enjoy the scent of "winterberry." Who needs the pleasant scent of real pine when you have this olfactory delight from the 3M Corporation and Monsanto? The food was pretty good but I could barely taste it over all the "holiday scents."

- Festively patterned plates, salad plates, dessert bowls, etc. all in different patterns from a Big Lots or craft store. OK, fine, but water at the table was served in plastic Aquafina bottles at each place. What ... ?

- I had to take notes on my phone for this, but the tiny guest bathroom had all these things: two lighted fake Yankee candles; three unlighted but scented candles; two spray bottles of Febreze (blue and green) on the back of the toilet; bows tied around the towel racks; a Christmas-colored knitted Kleenex box cover; a snowman-patterned shower curtain; 12 individual snowman-patterned curtain hooks that matched; two different patterns of holiday paper guest towels (the real towels on the rack looked like they were used to wash a car); a snowman night light; a hanger over the toilet paper dispenser that read "THIS HOUSE BELIEVES" — and, not holiday themed, but a dog toy tote that said "BEWARE OF WIGGLEBUTTS!'.

I'm the ugly sweaters!

Which are not being worn out if humor or irony, but to keep warm and look "festive".

I'm sorry. I know I have the receipts somewhere but Ross has a very good return policy.

We need more to your story, R20.

I left and never looked back.