The Children's Table

Every Sunday, my family gets together at my parent's house for dinner. It's just a chance for everyone to get to see each other and catch up on gossip. Fun times. Since my family is so large, we require two tables for such functions. We normally separate the children at one table, and the adults at another. I tend to end up at the children's table.

Since I'm one of the few left who isn't married, when someone has to sit with the kids, it's normally me. That way two adults don't have to sit there. I love my nieces and nephews, but I'm not one for kids, so sitting at the children's table isn't much fun for me. Luckily, I was able to squeeze in next to Eric tonight at the adult table. As my family was laughing at my plight, my sister reminded me of earlier years, when we were banished to the kid's table.

For holiday dinners, my entire family would be home. Today, my entire immediate family consists of 20 people when you factor in my brother and sister-in-laws, as well as nieces and nephew. You can imagine that many people don't fit at one dining room table, no matter how big it was. When I was getting out of high school and the first few years of college, we couldn't really have a kid's table, since my nieces were too young to eat by themselves. Thus, Molly, Kara, Kyle and I got screwed every holiday and had to sit at a card table by ourselves.

It sounds really funny, but it wasn't. We were excluded from every conversation, had to get up and get food if we wanted it since no one could pass it to us, and were completely ignored. After the first Thanksgiving and Christmas, we decided to enjoy the holidays our way, with liquor.

Like I said, no one paid any attention to what we did, so we would break into the liquor cabinet...okay, the basement, we didn't have a cabinet. While everyone else was having a glass of wine, we were mixing mean drinks and getting trashed. Kyle was between the ages of 12 and 14 the years this happened. Thus, I don't think I've ever celebrated a major holiday with my family while sober. It's my link to rougher times.