The Quirky Family

                        Yup that is my expression most of the time. Awe and weirdly amazed.

I am Canadian.  Therefore I celebrated Thanksgiving over a month ago.  However I have to admit that I am a little jealous of my American counterparts.  They kind of have it right.  They start their holiday season off with a big jump start.  We Canadians on the other hand have long forgotten what we are thankful for and often Christmas is a distant thought.

But I am fortunate.  I belong to a group of women bloggers who many or even most, are American.  This week I have also been fortunate to read their blogs. Their blogs on gratitude.  And I will admit that this week was one that I needed to read that.  You see my focus this week was “anger.

Now as much as I am entitled and you are entitled to feel anger, we know at our core we can’t stay in it.  As the week ended I found my way to “passion for life” and rekindling that thought was kinda cool.  But I always came back to my American Friends (and actually a few British and Canadians) who spoke of gratitude.

And I thought of my family.  My quirky family.  I cannot imagine my life without my quirky family.

When I was growing up I really didn’t have a family to speak of.  I wanted one so badly that when I was 15 I decided that I would implement this breakfast tradition on Christmas morning that to this day exists.  We eat copious amounts of food (fruit, whipped cream, sausages, pancakes, French toast, hashbrowns ect.) which takes hours to prepare, before we open presents.  And then we open one present at a time so the person that is opening the present has a moment of joy and to give thanks and the rest of us are participants.

It was in the planning stages of Christmas in those early years but ones that I could really implement with my own family.  But to my surprise one that when they started having family they kept or added their own twists to it which is cool too!

The one thing because of my lack of a family unit I didn’t plan on was the

My granddaughter Rylee at her princess party...I think she likes I am a little Quirky

 “quirky” family.  These are the in-law, the steps, the mothers and fathers of the in-laws and the steps, and the adults that my children became.  Not to mention the person that emerged as me who likes to refer to herself as “Queen Jamma” and who believes in her heart that if only she was ruling the world...need I say more.

We are “Quirky”.  And I love us.  The quirkier the better.  Who wants to sit in a room of people just like ourselves. To begin with, I GET TIRED OF ME…lol. I so love the differences of each of us.  Yes, sometimes I want to shake you.  Sometimes I want to offer you a drink (or even a few).  Sometimes I might even want to uninvited you. 

But at the end of the day….I am so glad we are sitting at the same table.