The Aftermath of a Holiday

I adore my family. I look forward to big gatherings because it’s a chance to see everyone at once. We all have busy lives and don’t get to visit with each other as much as we used to, so holidays turn into more of a reunion than a regular holiday.

That was no different this year except we had some new faces. There were girlfriends of nephews, parents of my sister-in-law, and relatives of my aunt. We squeezed twenty-five people into my brother’s house and managed to sit down and eat together. That’s truly a feat that I’m not sure we’ve ever managed.

I adored Thanksgiving. I ate too much, watched too much football (although is there any such thing?), and gooed at my newest nephew too much. Yet by three o’clock, I was twitching with the need to be alone.

My family is filled with dominant personalities. I can be quiet for long periods of time and don’t have a problem being alone either. I call it “being private” other people call it “anti-social”. *snort* So being surrounded by no less than fifteen people (all blood relatives) who like to talk loudly about anything and everything and want to be the center of attention can be overwhelming sometimes. The other ten people were either married to relatives or relatives of those who married into the family.

It’s the funniest thing, something we’ve all commented on before, but we tend to marry quieter people. I guess because if we hooked up with someone as loud as we were, we’d never be able to have intelligent conversations at home. The in-laws bond together and shake their heads at the rest of us, or close their eyes and pray for patience because of something we’ve said, or they just sit back and ignore us. It’s a defence mechanism. Poor things.

Back to Thanksgiving. The minute the last car door slammed at around six that evening, I ran to my room, put on my pajamas, and huddled on the sofa trying to recover from family overload. Ah, it was blissfully quiet with my dog and cat coming out of hiding to cuddle next to me. Le sigh. Happiness in silence.

And then I remembered someone mentioned Christmas and I cringed. Do we have to do this again? So soon??