Family secrets

Last week was King's 60th birthday. As a surprise for him our daughter, her husband and twin sons flew in to Michigan to help celebrate the occasion. Since I knew they were going to be home in December, I decided to host the family Christmas party over the weekend while they were here.

I am sure King wondered why we were having the Christmas party so early in the season. And I'm sure he was a more than a little concerned about our trying to host the event in our tiny house. Having everyone over in the summer when we can gather around the outdoor fire pit is one thing. Trying to squeeze 25 adults and children into our tiny house in December is quite another. Other than telling me a few times there was no way we could fit everyone into our house, he didn't argue too much.. He learned long ago I will defer to him to a point and then I will dig in my heels and say, "This is the way it MUST be."

I couldn't tell him we were hosting the party at a large home near the lake that our daughter and son-in-law had rented for the occasion. So I to let him think I was crazy enough to try to fit everyone in our home.

Despite his misgivings about our limited space he started decorating for the occasion. He put up the outdoor Christmas decorations and helped me decorate the tree (which will be dead long before Christmas since it was put up so early). Much of the fun was working to keep the surprise visit a secret. There were a lot of clandestine meeting with our sons to get portable cribs, gather extra baby toys and get high chairs.

King said he had hoped our daughter and her family would be able to make it to Michigan as they had been in Nashville for Thanksgiving, visiting our son-in-law's mother. Tennessee is much closer to Michigan than California so he had been holding out some hope.

When I left the house last week to set up the cribs at the rental and was gone for several hours, he said he hoped I was on my way to the airport to pick them up. When I arrived home empty-handed, he simply wondered where I had been. Their eventual arrival was a surprise. And King was thrilled.

The family Christmas party is a tradition that started when our oldest son was a toddler -- some 38 years ago.

Those first parties were held at my sisters home in West Bloomfield. By the time our family moved to Glenn the parties had moved to my parents home -- we all crowded into Mom and Dad's house and laughed, ate, played games and ate some more.

Mom loved those parties. It was probably the biggest event of the year for her. She would plan the menu, buy staples weeks in advance and agonize over just the right gift for each grandchild.

Although throughout the year she would tell us she and Dad had to be careful with their money as they were on a "fixed income," when it came to Christmas there were no holds barred. She bought for everyone. (As a sidebar here, aren't we all on a fixed income)? 

One year, as an economizing measure, we convinced Mom we should draw names. Mom went along with the plan -- sort of -- as we were drawing names for the adults she was planning what she would buy for the grandchildren with the extra money.

Amid all the chaos of those events, with kids yelling excitedly about what they had received, and Dads digging through waist high wrapping paper strewn on the floor looking for missing toy parts, Mom would sit down next to Dad, smile at him and say, "See what you started?"

Mom meets the twins for the first time.

This year Mom sat in the family room and watched the children play. She didn't know who we were, or who the children were, but she was the most animated she's been in months. She kept exclaiming, "Those are twins, aren't they!"

It was bittersweet. Our children remembered the Grandmother who is no more and their children wondered who the old lady in the chair was and why everyone kept telling them to hug her.

And the party was everything everyone had hoped it would be. Lots of food, air hockey in the basement, presents, talking, more food, Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary. Controlled chaos and fun.

The letdown was gradual. First our sons left. Lots of goodbyes and promises to get together later in the month.  It was sad to have it end as quickly as it started.

We spent another two days with our daughter's family, but that, too, ended much too soon.

This morning we helped them load their rental car and watched as they headed to the airport. We walked through their house looking one last time for anything left behind, closed the door and went home.