Why are the holidays so weird?

I'm going to be perfectly blunt. 
What my brother said to me was, "Why do the holidays have to be so f*****g weird?"

And I have to ask the same question.

Oh, sure. Thanksgiving and Christmas is supposedly about togetherness. I get that. Peace and good will to all, certainly. I get that, too. 



But somewhere in it all -- there is invariably something 'weird' that pops up. 


For my brother and I, it was random facebook messages from a long-distant sister-in-law. She told us both that she thought we would like to see pictures of our niece and nephews. 

We haven't heard from her in, goodness, 4 years more or less. And that's how she wants to word it??


As The Professor says when I asked him his opinion, "I don't see anything wrong with it, but I don't see anything good in it, either." 

You might say, that it's a gesture of peace.
If that's the case, the wording sucked.

As my brother put it - "Let me know what your inner turmoil tells you." And that's where I am. 
I don't just want pictures. I think it's paltry offering after 4 years. After not being able to see any of them, save the time my brother drove up for a funeral. There's been no communication. At all.


My brother and I had a fight, via e-mail and that was the last of it.
I don't know what to think -- except that the timing is weird.
That the entire message was weird.
I didn't like having the guilt trip in the message.


--------


And then - my other weird moment came when A friend wrote on her blog, in a series of blog posts that she no longer believes in God. 


She's been silent in our communications and I was chalking it up to another lost friendship. I seem to have a lot of them. 


Her confessions don't make me question my own faith.
I do wish that I had the words to counter what she has questioned but I think she's had enough words. Far too much religious doctrine piled up and not enough evidence that God actually works.


What would you do?
Would you try to convince her? Would you simply break off communications?
I'm tired of losing friends. So I won't do either. 

She suddenly has Sundays free and I pointed that out. 

I still want to be her friend and I won't temper what I say to her but I have to wonder how her new found belief system (which seems to be trending toward Atheism) colors her opinion of ... well, me.


I've come out of a tough situation and I've decreed that I still believe in God. 
I believe He did divinely create the world, and me. She thinks if there is a divine creator he was drunk because nothing He made makes sense. 

So while I'm wondering why the holidays have to be so weird, I'm glad I didn't wrap her Christmas present. 


Do Atheists celebrate Christmas?? 
It seems rather pointless, to be honest. 
but that's probably a blog post of a different color.