"The Gathering"

Both of my sons know that I expect them to be in Perry on Christmas night if at all possible. I will cede Christmas Eve and even Christmas morning to others as long as I can have Christmas night. For it is on Christmas night that we "gather." 

This gathering consists of our closest friends and their families. It is held at the home of Gayle and Frank, and has been for the past seventeen years or so. Gayle cooks all the food and the rest of us just come and enjoy ourselves. Is that a winner or what!

We started this when my boys were still at home, and have continued it through the years. One of our friends' daughters is going to be in Virginia for Christmas, but she and her husband are heading home on Christmas Day to make it to Gayle's that night. I told someone that and they asked if the couple was crazy. I said they certainly weren't, they just want and need to be at the gathering.

This will be my daughter in law Angela's first gathering as a Cooper. She came last year but she was an "outsider." Now she is one of us. My other daughter in law Paula will also be there. It has been fun to watch her adjust to this gathering year after year. I think initially she was a little overwhelmed by so many people being in one place and being so close in friendship. But as the years have passed and the gatherings accumulated, she has become as comfortable as anyone else there.

It is particularly great to have my grandchildren there. I feel they are learning how important friends can be and how they can actually become your "family." It is just dawning on them this is a Cooper tradition. Genna, my five-year-old granddaughter now asks if we are going to Miss Gayle's this Christmas.

My father and stepmother used to attend these gatherings. It was like one of those plays where people only meet up once a year but continue a friendship or a relationship. Daddy and Florence would head out to Gayle and Frank's with us and within a few minutes they would be as relaxed and happy as they could be.

There is a vacancy in the gathering now that Daddy is gone. Other members of our group have lost a parent also. I often wonder what my mother would have thought of the people there. I think she would have been in the middle of it all and would have loved the richness of friendship these meetings exude.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, but I think it is also intended to be a time when you gather with your friends and thank God for the warmth these relationships have brought you during the past year. At least that is the way it is for me and mine.

So I hope you have a "gathering" that you attend; one that puts your heart in the right place. A true friend is a rare gift and I have been blessed with many. It is a joy for me to gather with them at this special time.

 

 

 

 

 

©2005 Jackie K. Cooper

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