The Long Holiday Ends

The final installment of Christmas 2010 is over.  Like punctuation at the end of a sentence, this time with brother and sister-in-law, nieces, nephews, and their spouses brings to an end a very long holiday, but what kind of mark?  Not an exclamation point, I know.  That would take a full gathering of family with the opening of gifts, the sharing of raucous laughter, and the inevitable subtle tension that can result when all the Jackson personalities are gathered in one place.  Not a period.  Much too mundane, too boring.  Not at all appropriate for this holiday period.  There was nothing boring about our holiday.

Starting December 10th in Kansas City with Mark and Lindsey and some of Lindsey's family, we had a wonderful, warm time.  Our trip there and back was our gift to ourselves, stopping along the way, strolling the aisles of antique mall after antique mall, buying with abandon gifts for ourselves, a very satisfying treasure hunt assuring that every gift we gave ourselves was a valued one.  Our next event was Christmas Eve at the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe, just the two of us, a roomful of strangers who shared with us a love of jazz, great food, and great music.  It proved to be one of the more romantic evenings of recent years.  Christmas Day brought a few surprise gifts offerings to each other.  New Year's Eve we headed to Vinology for a four course dinner and more wonderful jazz but this time, from people we knew.  Great, great food and another magical evening for just the two of us.  We spent January 7th through January 10th entertaining Mark and Lindsey.  Together we discovered wonderful Detroit entertainments, ate great food, watched a close basketball game between KU and U of M, and belatedly celebrated Mark's 29th birthday.  I had left the house decked out for Christmas for the occasion injecting more of a holiday feel.  And finally this last weekend.  More gift giving and receiving, more good food, more family, more fun, and more new members -- not only the spouses of the niece and nephew but also the parents of one.  We spent a pleasant time enjoying dinner at Benihana's and then later gathering in the family room laughing with each other as we shared childhood memories and misdeeds, something we all had in common no matter our age or our origins.

So, I'm torn between a question mark and an ellipsis.  The ellipsis would imply an ambiguity, a wait-and-see kind of feeling.  A "there's more to the story, check back later" kind of feeling.  A question mark would imply that there are undecideds, questions with  answers.  Our family is growing.  Traditions established by the older generation are being adjusted by the newer generation.  There's nothing inherently right or wrong about this reality.  I think it's to be expected.  How we respond to these changes, how we adjust -- well, that could be a question or a wait-and-see, a question mark or an ellipsis.  One is more active; the other, more passive.  Those of us of the "older" generation will choose which position to take.  The younger generation may not even be aware of the dilemma.  For myself, I choose the "wait-and-see, settle back for the ride, there's more to come" approach ...