Everyone at the Kid's Table

Absent anyone from an older generation and Christmas dinner feels a bit like playing house. Five adults, four children, a delicious dinner and a lovely setting but somehow, it still feels like we are all sitting at the kid's table, with the grown ups in the next room.

Dinner at my cousin's beautiful suburban home, served on our great aunt's china but when I'm the oldest one at the table, I find it hard to believe that we can actually pull this off without help.It's getting more familiar, and it's not that we are all terribly young, hugging either side of 40 all around, but even now, it's hard to believe that my youngest cousin is able to throw such a party. Understand, it's hard for me to imagine that I could be old enough to have a cousin old enough to remember to buy hand soap for the bathroom but I am, and she does.

There are no empty seats at our table, we are full with love and laughter and holiday merriment, but there is a candle in the window and always room for one more chair, one more friend, appropriate generation affiliation not required.

On to the business of 2013, happy new year!