Well, I’m 2 mo shy of 75 and I’ve been hosting family holidays since I was 30, even when we were still living in rentals. The older I get the more difficult it is, especially since now with our three great nephews, ages 33, 31 and 26 and they each have long term girlfriends along with just the nephews parents and my sister in law and brother in law brings the total up to 12 with David and I. Don’t get me wrong I love all of them dearly, but our home is small and we just barely fit all of them in with putting a card table at the end of the dining table. The boys Mom, Marlana and Dad, Dan and David and I alternate having the holiday dinners, and its a lot of work for Marlana too who’s 59 and still working.
Right now we are getting ready to have our Christmas celebration here on Dec. 14th because they will all be out of town on Christmas. I’ll be making Lasagna. And we are looking forward to this date. Alec, Brandon and Logan are the closest thing that David and I had to having our own children, their parents included us in their lives from the very moment each was born. We were right in the labor and delivery room for each of their births, except for the actual birth. And we babysat each of them from infancy and we are the godfathers for Brandon and Logan. And their girlfriends, Brooklyn, Adele and Melonie are lovely and sweet young women who we love dearly too.
I don’t begrudge having them all for dinner at all, but I’d be lying if I said that it isn’t a whole lotta work. I’m old school and when we invite family for dinner I don’t expect them to bring anything or to help with the clean up, that is the hosts responsibility as far as I’m concerned. But it will sure be great when our nephews and their girlfriends start to take a turn at hosting these family get togethers.
Young people don’t grow up as quickly as we did when I was younger. And it was hard to afford 45 years ago too. But that being said I’m so glad that we’ve had these family dinners for all these years and grateful for all the memories.
Eddie
