Things got trickier when I got older, but still managable. My mom doesn’t have any family in the area, but my father does, so I ended up there by default. Even after I moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey, this never caused a problem as my mom would just pick me up from my cousin’s house (who was also in New Jersey) after Christmas dinner when I was younger; when I was older, I’d drive myself.

My father made it very clear when we moved to PA that Christmas Eve would always be at his house. This was mostly in response to actions by my step-brother, but also partly because my dad wanted to build a sense of tradition. So, every year for about sixteen years, my step-mother has made Christmas Eve dinner at their house (which for many of those years was also my house).

Then came The Unpleasantness ™. I’m not going to go what was involved with The Unpleasantness ™ because this isn’t really the place to air other people’s business (that’s what LiveJournal’s for), but suffice it to say that my father and step-mother have had a disagreement and while it has nothing to do with me, and they’re not getting divorced (as far as I know), the fallout is that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.

(I know what you’re thinking–”but, Amadei, if it doesn’t have anything to do with you, why doesn’t she want to see you?” It’s weird, yet true. I can actually say I had no hand in any of the events that went down, even from two states away.)

The fallout also includes me being at a bit of a loss for what I’m doing for Christmas Eve for the first time in…well…almost ever. Certainly the first time in my adult life.

It’s an odd sensation when a tradition goes awry.

It’s an odder sensation when I realized that this must be what Christmases are usually like for children of divorce–the not knowing what’s going to change and what’s going to stay the same. I didn’t go through any familial turmoil when I was eleven, but apparently I’m going to go through it at twenty-seven.

So far, it seems the biggest change will be that it will probably just be me and my daddy having dinner somewhere and the chance that I will have to go to midnight mass is quite slim.

But I’m okay with that. Happy holidays, one and all.

I say “raised as” because even though I’ve always known about my big brother, I didn’t get the chance to actually meet him until last year, a few months after my twenty-sixth birthday. He’s nineteen years older than I am, so I’m not sure my life would have been any different even if we had met sooner as he would have been somewhere in the middle of his Freshman year of college when I was born.

My place in the family has always been a little on the strange side. My father is the baby of his family, sixteen years younger than his oldest brother. Adding on the fact that my father was forty-three when I was born leaves me in a sort of gap-area as far as cousins go. I’m over ten years younger than the next youngest cousin in my generation, and five years older than the oldest of my cousin’s children.

What this meant to me when I was younger was two things:

1. There was usually no one for me to play with at family gatherings.
2. I was always relegated to the “kid table,” so I was forever trying to advance myself to sitting at the “grown up table” because five years means so much when you’re fifteen and you have to sit with a ten-year-old and an eight-year-old.

Last Saturday, I went to my aunt’s house to visit with the four cousins that came from my Uncle Augie, the proverbial black sheep of the family.

Don’t worry, I’m probably the black sheep of mine, so I say that with love and affection.

I haven’t seen these cousins (or their children, who were all there except one) in years–while my father’s sister’s children all mostly stayed in Vineland, NJ, my Uncle Augie’s children ended up scattered to the winds–central New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio. No one’s particularily close to one another except the youngest–she lives close to her mother (the aunt at whom’s house we gathered) in PA.

When I walked in the door, I was quickly reintroduced to everyone–somewhat redundant as I feel like my cousins haven’t changed at all (which they would probably be delighted to hear me say) and it was easy to figure out which of their children was which as my memory for names and approximate ages is unsurpassed (preen, preen).

My father showed up, late as usual, and the introductions began again as my step-mom isn’t as familiar with everyone. In my dad’s old age (ha ha), he’s become very interested in his family history, and in my cousins, he found a whole new audience for the stories I’ve heard a million times before.

But the stories get old, even to me, and I found myself at one point sitting in a chair in my aunt’s living room watching Jacob-the-six-year-old and Rowan-the-fourteen(?)-year-old playing with action figures on the coffee table while Ryan, the oldest of that generation at nineteen, lounged on the couch behind them trying to assemble some action figure whose appendages are held on with magnets. On the chair that matched mine, Madelynne (who’s sixteen) was drawing in her sketchbook; alternating between a green armchair and running around was her sister Alaeta who’s somewhere around ten years old. My dad, step-mom, my aunt, and my cousins were outside talking or puttering in the kitchen. It was at that moment I realized something.

I was sitting at the kids table.

And I liked it better than the grown up table.

I mentioned this to Ryan, and he laughed. Then he rolled his eyes and said, “Well, duh. The grown up table doesn’t have action figures.” Very true.