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Ahh, family: Christmas with the Kennedys
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 24, 2000 This is going to be an interesting Christmas. One of the reasons I have never enjoyed this season is that I came from a dysfunctional family and holidays were only an excuse to add (more) alcohol to increase the level of dysfunction. That, and a few other factors, made it important to me to spend the holiday as far away from as many people as possible, usually with just a close friend or two. But, through the miracle of engagement, I have inherited a family. A large Irish family including my fiancee's children, her five siblings, their children and her parents. As near as I can count, there are 15 or so of them and they get along about as well as most other large families. So we're having the gang over for Christmas dinner. The last time I entertained at home was around 1988. It's not that I'm antisocial, it's just that I'm not that much into housecleaning and, especially after I was widowed, my view on the subject became rather, well, casual. I just kept gradually ceding more territory to the mess until there was a path between the bed, the refrigerator and the television set, and I was seriously contemplating moving as an alternative to cleaning up. People sell cars "as is," I reasoned, why not houses? But things have changed; the joint is cheerfully clean and on its way to being redecorated, and I guess it's time for me to get a look at the inward workings of a real family. So far, I have been assured that none of them will mind that the dining room table only seats six and that they will be perfectly comfortable perching in the Grateful Dead room, the guest room (guess it's time to change those sheets) or the living room. I can't wait for that part, because the traditional holiday family meal, prepared by my brother-in-law to be, is prime rib. If these people can eat prime rib as lap food, then I may be getting in over my head socially, especially if you consider who's doing the cooking. My soon-to-be brother-in-law is John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Some day I'm going to say that in front of my shrink or in an emergency room and wind up wearing a straitjacket. But that's what Tom Kennedy, my father-in-law in waiting, named his son, and that's who is cooking the prime rib . . . partially because he's a good cook and probably because he's the only one of us who can find standing rib roast that will feed that many people. Eating with the Kennedy clan makes me a little wary that they may want to play touch football on the lawn after dinner. That's a little scary because most of them are younger than me and some of them are pretty athletic. On the other hand, in my yard you can only run about 10 feet in any one direction, so it won't be too tiring. I guess that, since my fiancee intends to keep her name after we are married, we could be justified in calling my place the Kennedy compound next year (come on, ever hear of a Shriver compound?) and maybe this could be the beginning of a new tradition for all of us, although it may go through some drastic alterations (in the touch football rules for instance) if we move to the clothing-optional resort I love in Colorado. As I look forward to being with a family this year, it is also the time of year when I remember that, for many of you, it will be the first or one of the first years without the traditional family unit around. Many of us have lost spouses and other family members and, for many of us, retirement has put miles between us and ours that seasonal travel problems and an unwieldy airline and airport system make it impossible to transcend. My advice is to make new friends and get to know your neighbors. My relationship with both friends and neighbors has gotten me through some dark hours. And if you get through enough darkness, I have found there really is a light at the end of the tunnel. I think I'll go bask in it for a while.
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