Christmas Day is a fun-filled festive 24 hours. There's gifts, Santa hats, and lots of cookies. But it's another day of just you and your immediate family. You, your parents and a sibling or two are around. There is no setting up the dining room to fit twenty-five people, there's no kids table and adult table. It's you and the same people you've eaten dinner with every night your whole life. Sure the day is special but it's not a big event really. You're not seeing relatives you haven't seen since last year and thinking of ways to avoid your rude Aunt Sally or your crazy annoying kid cousins.
Sometimes I envy those with huge families, dozens of cousins. The people that all go to grandma's house for Christmas Eve and their aunt's house for Christmas Day. I don't have that, I never have. My family is just spread out too far apart and no one ever makes the effort to be together on the holidays and the family that does live near me goes to visit their kids who have moved to other states. I'm jealous of the people that complain they don't have a nice outfit to wear to dinner with the whole family, of the people that get to sit down for dinner with a long table full of relatives, of people that have to buy gifts for their ten first cousins.
Maybe since I'm from a place populated by huge Italian and Irish families it's more drastic and maybe I have this exaggerated idea of holiday dinners or the size of the average family gathering. Whatever the reason, I've always been a little sad on holidays that I don't have that big exciting and slightly dreadful reunion of people I'm related to. I hope to marry into a huge family and one day host that dinner for twenty-five.
Despite my slight sadness on the holidays about my family's lack of numbers, I am incredibly grateful for my parents and brother who I get the pleasure of spending every holiday with. It absolutely bonds us and brings us closer together. We get creative and find ways to have fun with just the four of us. We have our tradition of eating leftover Christmas Eve dinner for breakfast Christmas morning and watching whatever new movie one of us received as a gift while we eat. We play Scattergories or Heads Up and get some great laughs in. I am blessed with a great family and there is definitely an upside to celebrating with a small group. One day we'll all get the experience of having holidays with more than just the four of us. But for right now, I'm okay with what I have.
