Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves

Ok. Opinions needed.
Well, lets be realistic, NOONE has left a comment yet, so maybe I'll just vent...
I am TRYING to be nice lately. I really am - I want to be agreeable and kind and lovely and all that - but people are so very annoying and it is really, really hard.
So...we (meaning I - my husband just had to do the gravy and he still stuffed up that one thing !!) hosted Christmas this year and it turns out that my sister left BOTH her Christmas presents at my house - so she can come pick them up right?? No. She wants me to take them to her.
Not that big a deal right? BUT instead of asking me outright, she just kind of HINTS around it - saying 'lets get together for lunch soon' which sounds perfectly innocent I know - but I had already turned her down twice- explaining that we are very busy with swimming lessons and catching up with friends. But she just kept texting and phoning that in the end she wore me down and I just thought 'oh what the heck I'll take her the damn presents' and even play along with the whole pretendy lunch thing. (By the the way she lives about a 45 minute drive away.)
I hate the 'ministry of hints'!
But the secret thing is this dear reader: I can't stand eating at my sisters house.
I know I know it's a HORRIBLE thing to say - but she lets her kids get away without washing their hands EVER, they have this truly HIDEOUS dog that is not toilet trained but they STILL LET IT IN THE HOUSE, their cutting board turns my stomach (meat and vegies on the same plastic board) AND they are getting suspicious - the last few times I have been there I've said I wasn't hungry - I don't know whether I'll get away with it this time...aargh.
What to do, what to do?
I saw Germaine Greer on Grumpy Old Women - Christmas Special and she was all brave, saying that we are grown-ups and if you don't want to go somewhere then DON"T GO (she was talking about spending time with rellies at Christmas) and I thought 'yeah that's right' and my gusto lasted all of about 5 minutes - obviously Germaine does not have a sister and a mother who specialise in the guilt trip. If I cancel tomorrow, or better yet declined the initial invitations, within 2 hours I will have received a phone call from my mother... and it will all be HINTED AROUND!!
Aaargh.
The person I am most annoyed at is myself. I should have stuck to my guns. I didn't want to go. I never wanted to go. I am dreading it for so many reasons. Why didn't I continue to say no thankyou?
Now I am having dreadful images of some lonely orphan reading this and thinking 'she is so lucky and doesn't even know it' and I know, I know I should be grateful... I have a friend whose mother died of cancer, and it seems that whenever I am bagging my mother to someone, this friend always appears and then I feel REALLY bad, coz I know she would love to have her mother around - and I know oneday when my mother passes away I'll feel REALLY bad for bagging her on a semi-regular basis, so I really ought to cut it out!
I know it - and I also feel terrible for publishing mean things about my mother and sister when they're really not that bad - overall - in the grand scheme of things - I mean there's always Hitler!
Oooh I almost got all political and wrote George Bush there.
Yknow I am quite conservative in my politics, but I got this infuriating email from my father recently.
I can't remember EXACTLY how it went, coz it made me really narked, but it began with a sappy line like;
There's someone in this world who really needs your prayers

and then

He has the weight of the world on his shoulders


He really is a wonderful Christian man


Let's help this Godly man with the awesome and wonderful decisions that he makes for us

By this stage I was really curious to see who they were talking about. I nearly pushed the computer off the desk when I saw a picture of George Bush on my screen. I wrote a diatribe back to my father about how I would save my prayers for the families of the over 3000 young men and women he sent off to fight to avenge his father -what is this Star Wars?? 'You (tried to )kill(ed) my father' - 'No George I am your father' - 'Noooo'!!

Well, obviously I am rambling because it is late and I am tired, so I will try to be nice tomorrow and just be grateful to have family. Although the bitch in me is tempted to 'forget' her presents. Ha - it'd backfire on me - she'd ask me to drive home and get them. I'd say no and then she'd KEEP ASKING until she got the answer she wanted and I obeyed.