The Matt Walsh Show - Am I The A**hole? Matt Walsh Decides - Christmas Edition
Aired: 2022-12-26
Duration: 10:43


=== Why Not Drink? (03:44) ===

[00:00:00]  Well, Christmas is a time for merriment and cheer and joy.
[00:00:04]  It's also a time when people act like a**holes.
[00:00:07]  And so we'll be going back to the Am I the A**hole forum on Reddit for a little Christmas-themed edition.
[00:00:14]  And we'll start here.
[00:00:15]  It says...
[00:00:16]  My husband's family likes to drink.
[00:00:18]  Every holiday includes multiple bottles of wines of wine slash cocktails.
[00:00:24]  I hate drinking.
[00:00:24]  I have never drank.
[00:00:26]  My father was an alcoholic.
[00:00:27]  I think it's childish if you can't have fun without drinking.
[00:00:30]  Ironically, it looks like she was drunk while she wrote this because there's no punctuation at all here.
[00:00:34]  This year I'm hosting Christmas for a change.
[00:00:36]  I decided since it's at my house, no alcohol allowed.
[00:00:39]  We are all getting older and it's time to grow up.
[00:00:42]  How have you gotten to the point of being an adult and you've never even heard of a comma?
[00:00:47]  And this is so common these days.
[00:00:48]  Like people that they don't even, they have no idea.
[00:00:50]  They never heard of the concept.
[00:00:52]  So they just, they don't even bother.
[00:00:54]  There are no commas here.
[00:00:55]  Very few periods.
[00:00:56]  Anyway, my husband's sister called to ask what she could bring.
[00:01:00]  She saw a recipe for a Christmas martini that she wanted to bring.
[00:01:04]  I told her about my no alcohol rule.
[00:01:06]  She didn't say much but must have told the rest of the family.
[00:01:10]  Some of them started texting me asking me if I was serious and saying that it is lame.
[00:01:15]  But I'm not budging.
[00:01:16]  Now it turns out my husband's sister is hosting an alternate gathering that almost everyone is choosing to go to instead.
[00:01:23]  It's so disrespectful all because they would have to spend one day sober.
[00:01:28]  My husband told me he talked to his sister and we are invited to her gathering and he said that we should just go and stop causing issues, but I won't.
[00:01:36]  It's so rude.
[00:01:38]  Now husband is mad because I'm making him stay home and spend Christmas with me, but it was my turn to host and I chose to have a no alcohol.
[00:01:46]  They could have dealt with it for one year.
[00:01:48]  Okay, you're the a-hole here without question.
[00:01:51]  First of all, how is drinking childish?
[00:01:54]  You can't even legally drink until you're three years into legal adulthood, so I'm not sure how it's childish exactly.
[00:02:00]  Second, you intentionally made your Christmas gathering less fun and then got mad when people chose not to come to it.
[00:02:10]  See, it's not the way it works.
[00:02:11]  You can't do that.
[00:02:12]  You can have your lame teetotaler celebration, but you can't force people to attend.
[00:02:17]  I'll have a bland and bland with nothing in it.
[00:02:20]  Alcohol is not necessary to have a good time.
[00:02:22]  It's not necessary.
[00:02:24]  But it is a social lubricant, and it's not necessary, but your prohibition on it is not necessary.
[00:02:31]  This is just a, this is like a power trip, and that's all this is.
[00:02:35]  Why would people want to go to your event if you have unnecessarily made it less fun?
[00:02:39]  That's what, that's what you have to ask yourself.
[00:02:41]  And also, one other point here, because this is important.
[00:02:43]  I think, I think people, this idea, just like commas, this has fallen by the wayside.
[00:02:48]  You know, when you have guests over to your house, Your own comfort is actually not supposed to be the top priority.
[00:02:54]  Like, yeah, it's your house, and you can do what you want, you can set whatever rules you want, but the comfort of your guests is supposed to be the top priority.
[00:03:02]  And if you're bringing them over for a holiday celebration, the most important thing to you in the world should be that they have a good time.
[00:03:10]  You should be more determined to see them have a good time than for you to have a good time.
[00:03:14]  There will be no more partying.
[00:03:19]  And that's the way it's going to work.
[00:03:20]  That's part of hosting.
[00:03:21]  It's like you're bringing on all of the responsibility, all the chores and everything onto yourself.
[00:03:27]  And you're doing all this so that your family has a good time.
[00:03:29]  It's an act of love.

=== Babies and Boundaries (03:53) ===

[00:03:31]  And if you're not ready to take that on, then it's probably better for someone else to host the event.
[00:03:36]  Alright, so you're the a-hole.
[00:03:38]  Good, that was easy enough.
[00:03:40]  I am a happily child-free adult.
[00:03:42]  Well, you're already the a-hole.
[00:03:43]  I don't even need to read the rest of this.
[00:03:45]  Babies have always made me super uncomfortable.
[00:03:48]  I don't like looking at them.
[00:03:50]  What?
[00:03:53]  I mean, we've already determined.
[00:03:54]  I don't think we need judge, jury, and executioner.
[00:03:57]  We've already decided.
[00:03:57]  We've already decided your sentence.
[00:03:59]  I don't like looking at them, being in their presence, or really hearing about them.
[00:04:03]  I used to have panic attacks if I had to be near a baby or toddler, even for a minute or two.
[00:04:08]  If a baby or toddler touched me, I'd freak out and have to go wash off a few layers of skin.
[00:04:13]  Oh, so you're mentally ill.
[00:04:15]  This is a crazy person.
[00:04:16]  Okay.
[00:04:17]  Still the a-hole, but you know.
[00:04:18]  There's no insanity plea to get you out of the a-hole ruling.
[00:04:23]  I don't know what caused such an intense reaction, but it's always been like this.
[00:04:27]  I've been working on at least being more cordial and tolerant with babies and toddlers to the point that I no longer have panic attacks.
[00:04:34]  So I'm glad you've been working on that.
[00:04:36]  However, they still make me very uncomfortable and I don't want anything to do with them.
[00:04:40]  I have a friend, we'll call her Sally, who knows that I do not like babies and how uncomfortable they make me.
[00:04:45]  Sally had a baby several months back.
[00:04:47]  How could she do that?
[00:04:48]  How could she do that to you, have a baby, when she knows how you feel about them?
[00:04:52]  I was polite and congratulated her.
[00:04:53]  Ever since, every so often, she'll randomly message me about her baby.
[00:04:57]  She'll start with, uh, I know you don't like babies, but... And then send pictures of her baby.
[00:05:01]  Tell me about toys or clothes she bought for her baby, etc.
[00:05:04]  I usually reply in brief messages like, nice or okay, and leave it at that.
[00:05:07]  I don't want to be mean, so I just give the minimal response.
[00:05:10]  I delete photos immediately.
[00:05:14]  Because I'm not interested.
[00:05:15]  Sally and I are not, nor have we ever been close friends.
[00:05:18]  Recently, Sally posted in a group chat that we're both in, asking for people's addresses if they want to receive a Christmas card from her baby.
[00:05:25]  That's how she worded it.
[00:05:26]  I figured if I didn't fill out the document, that would be an easy, non-confrontational way to ensure that I would not be receiving baby pictures in the mail.
[00:05:33]  Unfortunately, Sally messaged me privately today, asking for my address so that she could send a Christmas card so my silent opt-out is no longer an option.
[00:05:39]  Well, I'd be the asshole if I tell her I don't want a Christmas card from her baby.
[00:05:43]  And to please stop sending me photos and updates about said baby.
[00:05:48]  I guarantee, by the way, that this person has, like, of course, has a cat or a dog that she's obsessed with.
[00:05:54]  Which, by the way, in both cases, cat and dog, much dirtier than babies are.
[00:06:00]  Babies aren't dirty at all, in fact, actually, if you, like, are practicing basic hygiene with your children.
[00:06:05]  And much more annoying, too, are animals than babies.
[00:06:08]  So, you're the A-hole by a mile.
[00:06:10]  I mean, you set, like, a new A-hole standard here.
[00:06:12]  You win gold in the A-hole Olympics, I think.
[00:06:15]  Just because you naturally feel a certain way, or have always felt that way, That doesn't make it okay.
[00:06:22]  So we have this idea these days that if you say, well, you know, I've always, this is how I feel about this.
[00:06:27]  I've always felt like this.
[00:06:28]  That automatically, all of a sudden, that makes it okay.
[00:06:31]  It doesn't.
[00:06:32]  It is not okay to be repulsed by children.
[00:06:36]  It is not okay to hate them.
[00:06:38]  It's like actively not okay.
[00:06:41]  It's actually bigoted.
[00:06:42]  That's how we need to start.
[00:06:43]  Looking at this, people that say, I hate kids, I don't like kids, that's a bigoted response.
[00:06:48]  Because think about it, you are confessing to this prejudice and against an entire demographic of human beings.
[00:06:57]  And it wouldn't be acceptable with any other group you could think of, unless you were talking about white men.
[00:07:01]  Then in our culture, that's okay.
[00:07:02]  So white men and just all kids, those are the two groups you're allowed to despise.
[00:07:07]  Accept that.

=== Wrong Gifts (03:35) ===

[00:07:08]  Your anti-child bigotry is the least justified bigotry on earth because you're hating the most innocent people on the planet.
[00:07:18]  What has a baby ever done to hurt you?
[00:07:22]  So, this is not okay.
[00:07:23]  It's not okay to say no in this case.
[00:07:26]  And I like to think that your friend is fully aware of how this makes you feel and is just doing this to torment you, which I think makes me like your friend even more.
[00:07:35]  My mom died when I was seven.
[00:07:37]  My dad married a new woman about a year later.
[00:07:39]  My stepmom, who I'll call Dory, had a daughter much older than me, who I'll call Kylie.
[00:07:44]  My dad's explanation for why things moved so quickly is because Dory and Kylie were being evicted shortly after my dad started seeing her, and they needed a place to stay, so I didn't know them very well before they moved in.
[00:07:56]  Oh my gosh, this thing is long.
[00:07:57]  We're going all the way back to birth, or to when she was seven, and we're gonna get this entire story,
[00:08:02]  get all the background details that we don't need.
[00:08:05]  On Christmas, when passing out gifts, I only received one from my parents.
[00:08:09]  This was not something that was common in my family, as my dad makes a decent amount of money.
[00:08:12]  And so Kylie and I would always get at least a few gifts each.
[00:08:16]  Kylie and her husband received multiple presents, and when I pointed that out, I was told that it was because they needed them for their new house and marriage.
[00:08:23]  My present from my parents ended up being a hairbrush.
[00:08:26]  Dory then made a big deal about how she had forgotten the stockings and would have to go get those set up and handed out.
[00:08:31]  I assumed this meant that I was getting another gift in the stocking.
[00:08:34]  When I was handed mine, there was a jewelry box in it.
[00:08:36]  I was very excited.
[00:08:37]  When I opened it, it was a golden K necklace.
[00:08:39]  My name does not start with a K.
[00:08:41]  When I pointed this out, Dory said that the necklace was clearly meant for Kylie and put it in the wrong stocking.
[00:08:47]  I agreed that made sense and then asked if Kylie got the one meant for me and Dory said that there was not one for me.
[00:08:54]  Tough break.
[00:08:54]  I asked her if there was anything else she had forgotten and Dory said, if there's nothing in your stocking, you clearly didn't get anything else.
[00:09:00]  At this point, I was frustrated and hurt.
[00:09:01]  I started to cry.
[00:09:03]  My dad ended up yelling at me and saying that I was being ungrateful and causing problems on Christmas because some kids don't get anything at all on Christmas.
[00:09:08]  He was mad because he said that I caused a scene instead of talking to him after the holiday,
[00:09:12]  that I ruined Kylie and her husband's first Christmas together.
[00:09:14]  I ended up leaving and going to stay with my grandma for the rest of the break.
[00:09:17]  However, sometimes Dory will still mention how spoiled I am for ruining the holiday over not
[00:09:22]  getting what I wanted for Christmas, and it really makes me feel bad about myself.
[00:09:25]  So I have to ask, am I the a-hole for how I reacted?
[00:09:28]  Okay.
[00:09:28]  Yes, you are.
[00:09:31]  And so is your stepmom.
[00:09:33]  And your dad.
[00:09:34]  And Kylie is, too.
[00:09:36]  We'll just throw her in.
[00:09:36]  I assume she's probably a hill.
[00:09:37]  This seems to be a family-wide phenomenon.
[00:09:40]  It sounds like a miserable family.
[00:09:42]  My God.
[00:09:43]  What a nightmare.
[00:09:45]  Now, it's clear that your evil Cinderella stepmother was probably trying to make a point here.
[00:09:50]  She was using Christmas as a passive-aggressive way to make a point about how much she hates you and prefers the other one.
[00:09:55]  So that does seem pretty clear.
[00:09:56]  But at the same time, you're an adult.
[00:09:59]  And it's just not under any circumstance acceptable to complain about not getting enough gifts or getting the wrong gifts on Christmas.
[00:10:07]  There's nothing that can make that okay.
[00:10:09]  Maybe if you open the box and there was like anthrax in it or a bomb, then it would be okay to complain.
[00:10:16]  But other than that, you take the gift, you give your phony thank you, and that's it.
[00:10:22]  And then you leave.
[00:10:23]  And the real response here is just you don't go back to their house for Christmas again.
[00:10:27]  Because you see how they treat you, that's fine.
[00:10:29]  Your dad said that some kids don't get anything on Christmas, but you're not a kid, right?
[00:10:33]  You're at least in college, so you're an adult.
[00:10:35]  So this is just embarrassing for everyone all around.
[00:10:39]  Everyone is an a-hole.
[00:10:41]  All of you.
[00:10:43]  You disgust me.