Every year around this time of year, I start to brace myself. Against my will I start to get worried and anxious, because as much as I love the holidays, they’re never simple.

My parents were divorced when I was 6 years old. I remember being really sad at the time, but after a little while it wasn’t a sad or a happy thing- it was just a fact, underscored by my never really knowing my parents as a ‘couple’. As a result any time of year where family dinners are necessity, there is a massive flurry of e-mails and phone calls while watches are synchronized and negotiations proceed. When I was little this process was (relatively) no big deal, my parents decided who my sister and I spent holidays and birthdays with, but as we got older things got complicated.

Combine a complicated family dynamic with boyfriends and husbands, pepper with a new step parent, then a second round of parental divorce, followed by my mom’s new boyfriend being added into the mix this year, and you have the chaos that is my holiday season.

The logistics usually work out this way: for every holiday, we have three dinners. One with my Dad’s side of the family, one with my mom’s, and one with Mister’s parents. And in the case of Thanksgiving we also do American Thanksgiving with Mister’s family, and one at our house if they are out of town. So this fall I will have five thanksgiving dinners. Five. I have four Christmases every year, as well as multiple birthday dinners, two Easters, and  triplets of pretty much any other day off worth cooking food over, each meal taking from 3 – 4 hours.

And every time we get to the start of this season, I just feel overwhelmed.

I love my family dearly, but I struggle with it every year. Every now and then I wonder what it would be like to come home for Christmas, to parachute in for the fanfare when I wanted. Or what it would be like if I could get a pass to have one Christmas dinner and call it at that, or do a holiday meal with friends without it being an issue-with-a-capital-I.

I love my family, but I feel shakey about how much it has changed in the past year, and how at dinner after dinner it’s right there in front of me & unavoidable. I don’t know when I’ll have room in my heart for the people my mom is taking on as her new family.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and as the dinners start tonight for Canadian Thanksgiving and wrap around to American thanksgiving, I think that maybe when it comes down to it, what’s important is coming to the table.

Even if sometimes I find it hard.
Even if I wish I had one family, instead of three little ones.
Even if, for now, I only have room for dinner.