I'll be Home for Christmas

Last Christmas was a real doozy. The union of our various families has been a rocky process indeed.

Jenny and I were apart for over a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas while I hung out with a few billionaires trying to save the world. Needless to say, we didn't. After that, full of the optimism that drove me to try so many startups, I once again had planned a full slate of family holiday activities.

This time rather than flying hither and yon to butter up the families in every possible combination, I decided to bring the families together in a venue that enabled them to hang out with each other or to avoid each other, each according to their own desire. The trick was to find a place that offered enough space for the relatives and their emotional baggage. The eventual solution came down to an island or a cruise. The presence of a casino and 24x7 food on the cruise sealed the decision, although personally I would have preferred the island.

Easier to bury the bodies, you know.

Gradually the number of family members interested in the cruise increased until the attendee list stood at fifty people. When it came to relatives, nothing was too good for Sigmund Fuller's wallet. (Of course in reality all of the twenty-odd staterooms were arranged in late summer, but please continue to allow me some artistic license.)

Family members seemed to fall in to several categories:

The Gamblers spent most of their time in the casino, bleeding both money and embellished stories of the occasional success that fueled their irrational behavior.

The Children ran around like headless chickens until they ran out of energy, and which time they miraculously transformed into the wailing hellspawn of banshees... Keep in mind that not all members of The Children group were minors.

Then there were the Floaters, so called by me because I truly hoped for their sake that they could survive in sea water without the aid of floatation devices.

Of course one unifying principle, adopted over the last year by all the adults, was the Principle of Disdain, which was to look upon other families with Disdain, just on Principle. This caused no end of friction which in theory could have surfaced issues to discuss and resolve, but in fact only fed private rantings and the worst sort of clique behaviors.

Jenny and I went with the best of intentions, cheerful and optimistic and definitely consensus building and ready to work out issues.

After a few days the lifeboats were looking real good.

Perhaps I exaggerate. Really there was some improvement over last year. For example last years most common comment was along the lines of, "why on earth are you going to marry [him or her]". This year the favorite complaint was, "when will you set the date for God's sake?," rapidly followed by a muttered, "God, I hate [his or her] family." And I count that as significant progress toward accepting the inevitable.

Now if only they could get along with each other.

Bottom line? No deaths, no missing body parts, only minor injuries to pride.

Next year: a private island. Will it be Lost, or Gilligan's Island?