I was home for Christmas.....

31. (Jennifer is mostly hidden behind her dad.)
That's how many people were in my living room Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve is the traditional family gathering time for my wife's clan. That is when the gift exchange among brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents and "friends" happens. It has been this way since before I was dating her. When I came on the scene, we went to her maternal grandparents' home. Mom's 2 brothers were there, and their progenies. Most of them had not married yet, although my wife's sisters and brothers had provided the first of that generation's great grandchildren to Walito and Walita. It seemed as though, since their passing, the tradition was also dying.
We haven't gathered with the aunts and uncles on Christmas Eve for many years. We haven't had it at the same location every year either. I worried that since the passing of my mother-in-law five years ago, it would be another tradition regulated to the "remember the good old days" category. I didn't recognize the natural gap occurring.
Of the 31, there were seven children this year under the age of 10. There was my 84 year old father-in-law. There was the group of siblings and spouses I belong to in the middle aged group (45 to 65, as if any of us will live to 130!). There was our kids. And then their kids, with their own kids. It was awesome.
As the night rolled on and I observed the older siblings interacting the way they always have, and the cousins greeting each other with awareness and not the familiarity that comes from prolonged interaction like when they were kids together, and the newest generation just beginning to know each other, I was able to put myself back in time and see where I fit back then. I observed the "new" parents taling and interacting more with their siblings than cousins. It is the normal way of things.
One thing I did insist on as soon as everyone we expected to be there had arrived - a group photo. At first there was considerable resistance to the idea, but eventually there was joy when the picture was snapped and the family realized the next time this group gathered like this, it could be for a funeral and there would be one less missing.
We missed Brad and Jayme not being able to be there, but I am so thankful to have found home for the holidays.