I had a thoroughly wonderful day yesterday. I opted out of the gifting portion of the day with my family so I enjoyed a blissful lazy morning. From there to an early Christmas dinner with my maternal extended family. There was a distant cousin there who I'd never met before, and she proved to be a fascinating and beautiful person.
From there I went to an evening celebration with a new circle of friends. It's a large house of ten people who embraced me the moment I walked in the door a few months ago and I invited my cousin along. As I expected, they embraced her too. We enjoyed several hours of wine, bodacious food, music (some of them are professional musicians!) and brilliant conversation.
I went to bed counting my blessings, and reflecting on my many families - endless concentric circles of aunts, uncles, cousins, childhood friends, families of adult friends, some wonderful exes, and new friends through social activities in my new hometown. I piss and moan about being lonely sometimes, but I really am surrounded with a lot of joy and love and care.
I amused myself sending Christmas cards to a few ladies I 'know' from the internet, most of them I know had a not so stellar 2011. It was a little surprise for them
And I made a little Christmas care package for a friend who went to see his family over the holidays with whom he has a somewhat strained relationship. I could not drown my mom's voice out of the back of my head, telling me the young man could not show up with empty hands.... When I told her about that on the phone she agreed with me! :lol:
Isn't that what family is all about? I have an unspoken agreement with many of my families where they browbeat me into Doing The Right Thing and then congratulate me for coming up with such a wonderful (their) idea on my own! It's completely mutual of course, and done in a spirit of fun.
It's a bit of a running joke though with my online gaming buddies. gran is the designated guild troll (in a good way, my character is a troll by race) who takes care of everybody's needs, be it throwing a virtual feast when needed or handing out virtual gold. And giving some virtual hugs when the real life friend needs a shoulder to cry on.
My RL family here (the in-laws)? Oh well, we get along fine, the few times a year we do meet.