The Family Gathering (Part 1)

Friday night we went on one of those drives that makes you choose your music very carefully because, since your odds of crashing are pretty high, you don’t want the last song you ever hear to be sung by like Cher. Or worse, if you survive, do you really want a bunch of EMTs to hear you blasting Michael Bolton while they cut you out of your mangled metal case? I think NOT!

His sister and her family just bought a new place and the whole family was supposed to gather there for a Christmas…thing of some kind.

The first hour of the drive we were in high enough spirits despite the rush hour traffic and I will be honest, the constant comments from both of us that since half the family lives on the other side of the state, this sort of event should be scheduled on a Saturday afternoon. Eventually we got off the freeway and found our rendezvous point with the rest of the caravan since so many of us needed to follow his parents to the new house.

As we drove through an area my mother would have termed “the boonies”, our comments became more and more bitter. We uttered such classic sentiments as “why in the @#$% would any one live so !@#$%^& far out and make he !@#$ drive every day?” and “No way in #$%& we would ever live so far out no matter what the cost of housing?” As we drove through the canyon, he commented that he hoped the new house had A LOT more space. As we crossed over the mountain pass I said I hoped the new place was so huge we would be full of envy. Then, when we were way past where we could get cell phone reception, we agreed the new place had better be a doggone castle!

The leader of the wagon train finally turned off on a dark road in a town that I am pretty sure had a made up name and we drove past some admittedly large houses. We pointed to the largest. “One of these?” and as the houses got smaller and older we laughed “They did not move out here for one of these?” (They had just sold a pretty, new house in a more reasonable area, after all) At almost 9pm we passed a barn/shack I said, “Watch it be this” and not much longer after I spoke, the car leading us turned in to the drive way of a small and under- impressive rambler. Our laughter froze when, instead of stopping by the house, my mother-in-law’s car pressed forward down a dark trail and stopped near a giant, steel framed, windowless shed. I could see the door open and out popped my nephew.

“No WAY!”

Ok it turned out the rambler was the actual house (and it was beautiful and quite spacey inside) and the shed was their party-barn. And, though we had to keep our coats on, it was lovely place to gather.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking “did I actually have to read this whole long lame description of your stupid drive just to hear that you had a Christmas party in a barn?”

Yeah, well how do you think we felt?

This, by the way, is what a family Christmas party looks like when it is held in a barn. These children are all staring at Santa Clause, who is upfront listening to demands.