Home For the Holidays

I only get to make it back home a couple of times a year. And I love the time I get to spend with my family, but there is something that I have to get off my chest.

I remember the Christmas dinner at my Grandparents' house. There was a Big Table, then the Kid's Table. Those of us that sat at the Kid's Table never questioned it. We were far too interested in getting back to what we had just spent the morning unwrapping.

But now that I am older, I am more aware of the ebb and flow of family politics. I put in at least twenty years at that Kid's Table. Twenty Christmas's worth of shin kicking, and reaching, and other unmentionable things that happen away from eye and earshot of the adults.

And at the age of 22, I finally, and triumphantly, arrived. The ultimate goal of sitting at the Big Table was finally realized.

But now something is amiss, My victory, my rightful position at the Big Table, is tainted, sullied by this seven year old...this upstart. She has no idea of the time, the years that I languished away at that Kid's Table. She just shows up, then Bam! The Big Table? Are you kidding me? How did she do it? Does she have dirt on Grandma? Did she threaten to drop dime on one of my aunts? Is she gunning for my spot, relegating me back to the Kid's Table? Or worse yet, is she trying to get rid of me altogether?

Just when I don't think I will ever figure it out, she looks up at me with those big, brown eyes and says, "I love you Daddy."