I bet I can find more pieces than you!

So Christmas and New years are over. Did you hear that, yeah that was a sigh of relief from me. I love the holidays, they are awesome. Family, friends, music, food, lights and who can forget chocolate (it has a separate category from food because it occupies a special place in my heart). But lets be realistic, being close to family for a long period of time has it's down side. My family is well informed, funny and extremely fun. I laugh ninety percent of the time I spend with them, which is a good workout considering the other ten percent I spend eating. The downside to such an entertaining group is part of what makes them fun, the competitive spirit.

This Christmas my brother and his wife and my sister and her husband traveled to stay with my parents during the holidays. I live close by and spent almost everyday of the last week there with my family and my girls. My older brother is a hardcore gamer and brought rumikub, scrabble, and sequence to play during his stay. My sister and her husband are into gaming as well and gave my brother a real estate game and brought St. Petersburg (with an extension) and a few other games I can't name off the top of my head.

A fun game here and there is really quite an enjoyable way to pass the time. The interesting thing about my family is that they seem to be competitive about who has the most stamina regarding board games. It seemed that every moment of the day needed a game going or my dear brother was unhappy. Even that would be tolerable if those playing didn't treat the games with deadly seriousness. Such is the case with my family. We are blessed (from both sides of the family) with intense competitive drives. This makes for at least one terribly happy player and several very unhappy losers. I must admit that I was one of the unhappy losers the majority of the time. I grew into darker shades of the least graceful loser as the days rolled by.

I really don't like myself when I get like that. Even as a child I would play games with my cousins and my aunts and uncles would be slack jawed at how brazenly broody I became if things didn't go my way. My sisters and I broke at least two doors in our house growing up because a game didn't go our way. For this reason I have tried (unsuccessfully) to stay away from board games. My friends would ask to play a game and I couldn't refuse because I was trying to build friendships. Then twenty minutes into the game I would start calling people "buts" and getting a look on my face that would scare any adult alive. Most of my friends were forgiving but a few would be so shocked that they would start laughing and taking pleasure in my own displeasure. So then my strategy changed for controlling my angst, win, at all costs. The only way to avoid my dirty little personality flaw was to avoid the circumstances under which it unveils. So I got to be very good at games, and only played with people who didn't care so that I could win as much as possible.

That strategy was a good one, with anyone except my family. Not only do my own siblings care more than life about winning, but all of them (with me as the exception) married people who incredulously seem to care about it too. The tension in my parents house seemed to rise with each game. For a while most of us tried to put on the uncaring face when we lost. That lasted a few days, then came the insults. Once they marched in it was over. So finally this last Monday I told my family that I was sick of games. I decided we were going to relax and do some puzzles and watch movies. Sounds like a good idea right, NOT. My dear, dear brother came downstairs and started to insult my sister and me on our puzzling skills. Then, oh my goodness, he looked at his watch and said "Whoever finds the most pieces in the next ten minutes is the best." Yeah, this is my family.

The capstone of the holidays was on New Years Eve. Finally all our family was together. My other brother and his wife came to join the rest of the group for our annual treasure hunt. Usually our family New Year's Eve treasure hunts are a group effort with a huge group of fifty or so searching for clues in the city and around the suburbs where my parents live. But of course this year my father was in charge. He always splits everyone into teams. Which usually works well if you consider for a long time the personalities of each person and carefully assemble the teams. But of course my father didn't want to make anyone mad and allowed everyone to make their own teams. This consisted of my siblings and I forming a team, and each of my fathers siblings to form teams with their families. This left the most competitive people in the family all on one team. It was an interesting night. Lets just say that we broke traffic laws, forced open a video store after closing time and defied the laws of physics to win the contest and we were not gracious winners.

So here is the question of the day: How on earth does one learn to control genetic programming that places extreme competitive natures in people who can't seem to handle it? If you figure it out, please let me know. I am at a loss and extremely embarrassed over my behavior this last week. How anyone puts up with me, I do not know. I guess it's a good thing my family is related to me, they have to love me. Even when I behave so poorly I can barely call my behavior adult.