Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, who ever you are, you need one.
Jane Howard
It’s Christmas eve; time for a festive lunch downtown for an intimate group of around 30 or so. Granted, I don’t even know most of these folks, but they’re all part of “the Tribe” – a tightly knit, at times loosely related, family that has graciously embraced my household as part of their extended own.
We’ve been a part of this ongoing party for the past 11 years beginning in 1998 when we were invited along on a post-Christmas getaway to Vancouver, Canada; Saturday we leave for our 10th such trip. Our vacation routine has become nearly ritualized, or maybe it’s just pared down to it’s essence; an early morning train ride North, our now familiar welcome at the hotel where we always stay, lazing by the pool, lots of G&T’s, evening strolls around the neightborhood, movies, and a celebratory feast for the adults and the “big kids”.
Follow a tradition through enough years and you trace a very human history. Weddings, births, graduation, awards, college acceptances, new jobs, left jobs, travel, and of course, separation, pain, illness and death. Today at our annual Christmas Eve lunch, amidst the laughter, the reunions, the flying wrappers and many toasts, we’ll all be thinking of Big Dave – the loving Father of this tribe, whose passionate commitment to family and friends has cemented our place within it, bloodline or not. The greatest gift of all, and one that lives on and on in his loving memory.
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Beautiful post in honor of your tribe. I hope you had wonderful, blessed time together. It is really cold and gray here in Oklahoma today, and I wish the sun would peek through.~~Dee
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