Family Ties

It was the craziest gift I'd ever gotten... and possibly one of the best

- By JEANNIE HUGHES, Hurricane, West Virginia

One afternoon two weeks before Christmas, the first guests arrived at our Hurricane, West Virginia, home for the annual family get-together, stomping their snow-covered boots on my freshly mopped hardwood floors.

I put on my holiday game face and nudged my husband, Roger, and my daughter, Lindsay, to flash their most welcoming smiles. After all, some of our relatives had driven more than an hour from Charleston for the party. Aunt Frieda sashayed in with the same outrageous pronouncement she made every year: “Jesus couldn’t be here, so I came in his place.” My young cousin, Mary Beth, rolled her eyes, and Uncle June huffed with impatience at the time it took the other dozen family members to wrangle off their boots. Now it begins, I thought. Only a few minutes before the barbs start flying. Why do I even bother?

Every year, I prayed that somehow we'd transform into the Norman Rockwell family I'd dreamed of since I was a little girl. My late mother's mental illness had made my childhood pretty rough, and I guess I was hoping to bring some joy to this clan any way I could. One on one, my relatives were quite lovely, but put them together and even Santa himself would be tearing out his beard. I felt jealous of my brother, who didn't have to show up since he lived far away in New Jersey.

Roger hauled our guests' heavy winter coats to the spare bedroom while I set the gift each person had brought under our brightly lit Christmas tree. Each year, we drew names for the relative we would buy a gift for the following year.

What had started out as a typical contentious Christmas had become something wonderful. Something, dare I say, joyful.