Family dinner.  S’s side.  Very nice.  These Xmas dinners are very nostalgic, really.  Each one is like the last one only the kids are growing and the uncles are growing fat.  Same egg-nog, same dressing, same desserts.

Much the same conversation, too, only that the ‘kids’ play larger roles and talk about things that the older people either can’t hear or don’t understand.  Doesn’t seem to matter.  The smiling and laughter levels are the same.

One uncle is a sheet metal worker and quite talented at it.  He gives me sheet metal tubes for Xmas.  To most people, this would seem odd but, when one is living on an island, sheet metal tubes are pretty handy.  I like T’s Xmas presents.   The last one was a six inch tube that ‘morphs’ into three lesser tubes.  Hard to beat that!

The whole bunch shows up again the next day for brunch!  Two houses.  Two huge meals.  Same conversations.  And we get to do it all again next year!  It may seem as if I am really a smidge blasé about this ritual but, with my growing existential angst syndrome, I realize that I need it.  It is reassuring.  Like having a hard copy in the files.  If I wasn’t so sure that I existed last night, I will be made to feel as if I might by the end of brunch today.  By the end of the fourth leg of the Turkey trot series held tomorrow night at my brothers, I will be sure of my existence.

I think.