The holidays are all about family, but not necessarily the one you were born into or created…

I LOVE the family I was born into and helped perpetuate into two succeeding generations thus far. My mother (sole surviving parent for my wife and me) sisters, daughters and grandchildren mean the world to me. So does my family gained through marriage (we hosted nearly 40 members that included three generations in a delightfully chaotic Christmas Eve). But there is a special kind of love reserved for the family chosen independent of any blood relationships. 

My chosen family was born in the fall of 1969, when unexpectedly, I joined a fraternity. Close friendships soon formed with four of my new brothers: Two actual brothers, Mark, AKA OJ, and Bill, AKA Willie, from Valley Falls, KS; Dave, AKA Boss, from Raytown, MO; and Jim, AKA The Great Solver, from Leawood, KS by way of Nashville, TN. Little could any of us have foreseen that our new friendship would become lifelong relationships. Traditional families become extended by additional births and eventual marriages. Ours did as well during and shortly after our college days ended.

The Valley Falls brothers introduced us to numerous of their high school classmates, five of whom would become part of the family, including Don, Vicky, Larry (high school sweethearts Vicky and Larry would eventually marry), Carole and Fuzzy (separated from us by cancer but lives on in collective memory). Judy and Lanny (eventually married), and Ginny (who briefly dated me before wisely choosing Jim as her eventual husband), became family soon after college. Patty (Dave), Kathy (Willie), Martha Gail (me), Carolyn (Don), Orion (Carole) and Kathy (OJ) married into the family. 

After college, we all went in different directions – some to grad school, others for work in different parts of the country. We married, started and changed careers, and began our own families. Weddings, birthdays, births and various milestones were good reasons for gathering and celebrating. Within a few short years, all family members returned closer to where it all began, with most living in the Kansas City metro area. Being together became easier because of proximity – and harder because that’s the way life works. Watch parties to follow the KU basketball team on their Road to the Final 4 produced immense anxiety and joy in 1988 and 2008, ultimate heartbreak in all the other seasons. Whatever the outcome, it was a comfort to be as family in a shared experience.

As our children grew, they came to know our family of friends as aunts and uncles, their children as cousins. Several of our kids developed relationships due to age or proximity of their parents’ addresses. The majority of our family’s offspring eventually attended KU. Some met for the first time in the most unlikely ways, some became fraternity brothers and sorority sisters. We rejoiced in our next generation’s accomplishments and celebrated their marriages and births of their children. 

Life is an uneven, up-and-down journey; sometimes it takes us to an awe-inspiring peak or idyllic Alpine lake and sometimes to a lonely, desolate desert. Not all of our family gatherings were celebratory. We mourned the loss of parents and even one of our own sibling-friends, Fuzzy. We comforted and encouraged one another in times of health and emotional crises. After all, we were and are very much family.

In 1990 we began what would become a family holiday tradition – a festive, merrymaking party on the first Saturday in December. Initially, the events were held in one of our homes and included carols, dinner and drinks, perhaps too many of the latter. But as increasingly responsible adults, we decided to have our parties in a bed and breakfast. It gave us more time to spend with one another and to recall hilarious memories that may or may not have happened as retold – or even at all.

It seems almost surreal that our holiday tradition survived through the busiest times of our lives as we built careers, raised families and attended to civic and charitable responsibilities. It is, at least, testament to a love and commitment comparable to that of almost any traditionally defined family. But just as nuclear family relationships can drift over time and their fabrics start to show signs of wear and fraying, ours was in need of some mending also. There was talk in recent years about doing an extended trip together – and there were, in fact, a few occasions in which several family members traveled together, like to our daughter’s wedding in Mexico and Willie and Kathy’s son’s wedding in Canada. Six of us took a Rhine River cruise this past October. There were regular conversations about the kind of trip we would all take together as soon as one of us won the mega-millions lottery.

Thanks to OJ and Kathy’s generosity and accumulated use-it-or-lose-it rewards points, our family holiday received a jolt of energy – free accommodations for five days and four nights at a luxury resort in Cabo San Lucas. Seven of our family’s nine couples made the trip. All the elements of a sand and sea luxury resort were as beautiful as any brochure could make it seem.

But that beauty paled in comparison to the beauty of family relationships blooming fresh in the winter of our lives. In walks on the beach, in poolside chats, in shopping and entertainment excursions, in quiet times lounging on balconies or rooms, we engaged with one another. Whether in frivolous and fun group talk or meaningful one-on-one conversations, we were reminded of why we first became friends and how we grew to love one another as family. I was reminded that within this family were individuals that I could trust with the most intimate details of my life. 

Christmas day carries a lot of emotional freight. It was particularly so for me this year. While I am accustomed to my siblings, our daughters and grandkids being away from us on Christmas, their absence leaves a gaping hole in the Rockwellian holiday portrait framed in my mind’s eye. FaceTime, texts and phone calls are not the same as hugs, laughter and sharing life with one another.

After our Christmas gift-giving and feasting (Mom, wife and me), I drove Mom to her home and returned feeling more than a little melancholy. I took my dog for a walk. It was bleak and gray and quiet along the trail – not exactly a cure for melancholy, but a pretty good muse for self-pity and introspection. As I reached a place where the stream flows over rocks making a pleasant babbling sound, I reflected on the early December week that I spent with my chosen family and that culminated with a weekend with both daughters. I was overcome by a profound sense of gratitude and love. How could I feel sorry for myself when there are loved ones from two families that I care for and who care for me? Whether they are in my presence or not, I know that they will always be there for me and I for them. I am one lucky guy.