Family reunions, especially ones that go on during the yuletide season, can stir up emotions like an oddly mixed cocktail drink. We either look forward to these happy gatherings or dread exchanging pleasantries with the relatives we do not particularly want to bother with.
We welcome the news of recent weddings, births, or upcoming journeys overseas but frown upon tactless comments on weight gain, marital feuds, and brewing jealousies in finding out about relatives' good fortune.
Fortunately, such reactions dissipate once people shift their attention on the smorgasbord that's delightfully laid on the table.
It's strange that when most families visit with their kin every year, it's as if whole decades become lost and people recall only faint memories. Of my old aunts, I can only note of very few changes about them. However, when I see that some of their children's children are beginning to settle down or that my other nephews and nieces already started taking home pay checks, the realization of how much things have really changed startles me. To these younger relatives, I have somehow become of an "old" aunt myself.
A long time ago, I was counted among the young ones that clamored for money and presents from generous uncles and aunts. But now I share the table with grownups discussing subjects on marriage and parenting. I've even begun to care whether my elder cousins give even the slightest consideration to my opinions.
As for the members of the more 'senior' generation (who by now have either become widowed or survived heart attacks or strokes), they have but a few years left in which they can pass on their wisdom, old family traditions, and the longing for the kind of life filled with simpler joys and more profound virtues.
