The Sweetest Chaos

Mom and Dad’s house has stood for probably over 70 years. It’s been in our family for almost 63 years. Dad once told me they moved there three days after their wedding. On that long ago March day, roots were planted.

The house is really nothing spectacular. It’s been painted yellow or white or light green through the years. White awnings, trimmed at various times in either red or green, hung over some of the windows. As the family grew, Dad would just build another room or make an existing room just a little bit larger. Now it’s a three bedroom, one bath house with a half-basement, laundry room, dining room, kitchen and two space carport. It’s surrounded by a large yard on three sides and a wooded area on the remaining side.

The house has seen the best and worst of times for our family. Births and deaths. Good news and bad news. Reaffirmation and heartbreak. Laughs and tears. We’ve gathered around the old dining room table and shared meals. We’ve come here when we felt there was no other place to go. We’ve walked the floors here trying to walk out solutions to problems. We’ve relaxed here and drifted off to a place where the worries of the world no longer seemed to exist. Birthday candles were lit here to celebrate the certain passing of time. Thanksgiving and Christmas were celebrated here with enough food to feed a small army and enough gifts to warrant more than one tree.

Something happened over time though. It seemed that we grew too big for this house. The kids got married. The kids had kids. At some point the grandkids had kids. Soon, the number that would gather here doubled in size. At one time everybody could squeeze into one room and then we had to squeeze into two rooms and now it is all we can do to fit everyone into three rooms when we are all together. It seemed to become clear that things just wouldn’t be the same if we couldn’t all be together. Dad’s carpenter skills, learned and honed from necessity, just could not keep up with the burgeoning family.

Another thing happened along the way. Some of us moved away. This meant it was longer in between times when we saw each other. Sad to say, it also means, we only see each other mostly during the holiday season anymore. When it was time to gather together, we sometimes decided to meet elsewhere to a place with more room in order to accommodate as many as could come.

This year it was decided that our family would gather sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year though we wouldn’t meet at a restaurant somewhere and take up twelve tables. It was determined we would gather at Mom and Dad’s house just like we had so many times before.

This decision came with some fretting. Mom is older now and can’t clean the house like she once did. Would there be enough room for everyone? We wouldn’t all be able to sit around the table at the same time.

Still, the day came. Folks began to trickle in a few at a time. Before it was said and done, nineteen of us crammed into the house. Two babies, born less than two weeks apart four months earlier, made their initial holiday family appearances along with three others under the age of six, adding a little life and noise to the old pine paneled walls. We couldn’t all gather around the table at the same time but a funny thing happened, someone would sit down at the table and eat for a time and then someone else would work through the line and enter the dining room where someone would get up and let them sit at the table. So, if you wanted, you could have sat at the table because we rotated seats as needed.

Before long, it was time to open presents. We all crammed into the living room and sprawled ourselves over any open space. The three older kids were really fired up for the gifts and ripped through shimmery wrapping paper to get to a taped box only to tear it open to see what gifts they received this year. After this, our family plays an auction game, taking turns picking gifts and “stealing” gifts from each other. Then later, some of us crash while others gather around the dining room table and play cards or spoons or some other game someone has brought along all the while munching on party mix or sugar cookies or homemade fudge. All this would meld into the late afternoon and into the evening. Some would leave but most would stay.

The routine is pretty much always the same no matter where we get together. That’s good. This year though I tried to take it all in from time to time. I looked around and saw two cousins, five and three, try to pick each other up off the ground as kids often inexplicably do before wrestling around with each other on the hardwood floor, laughing with each tumble. I saw the almost four year old proudly and gracefully show off her new dress, which was pretty but not as beautiful as her smile. I listened to the easy natured joking between family members. I saw the two babies look eye to eye with each other as family members snapped photos of the two newest family members. I listened to my Dad relay a story about the three year old great grandson and my Mom that my Dad could hardly tell without laughing so hard that tears came to his eyes.

And it was all loud and crazy and a bit chaotic for awhile. Some chaos is sweet though. Amidst the chaos I kept thinking how this is the way it should be, that this is where we all should be on this day. We should be here together.

Maybe the five year old and the almost four year old and the three year old will remember the gifts they received this Christmas many years from now. I sort of doubt that though. I remember a lot of Christmases but just can’t seem to recall a lot of the gifts I received wrapped in shimmery paper covering a box with tape closing every gap. Maybe they will look back and recall with a smile how we all packed into a house Pappaw built onto and Mammaw looked after. Maybe they’ll remember how the floor filled with wrapping paper when the presents began to be uncovered. Maybe they’ll look back like I do now and see other gifts received that never sat wrapped under a tree…a place called home, family and friends, laughter, memories, roots and a bit of sweet chaos.

Merry Christmas. May your holiday season be filled with the good things in life especially those you love and the warmth of knowing they love you in return.