Christmas with my N kids, where N ≥ 6

One way of describing Christmas for people in my faith tradition is this:  this is the day we celebrate the birth of God's only begotten Son, a birth that paved the way for the rest of us to become adopted children in this large, diverse family.

For some reason, that particular description resonates a bunch with me.   The whole give-and-receive gifts thing is still very much present [<-- whoops] in our household, but I've tried to make gift exchanging take a secondary place to house building---in particular, gingerbread house building---with all my family members building the family building, so to speak.  Us, coming together.

See the house builders in the distance?

Yesterday's Christmas was super special for me: it marked the very first time that all of my children (birth, step, adopted) were together for Christmas.  In fact, it's the first time we've all been together in one place since November of 2011, when we managed about a half-an-hour together for a family photo. 

They're building the gingerbread house.

We did exchange gifts, and commemorate the Moment-of-Togetherness with photos, and we did build a gingerbread house.  The house, like my family, comes with diversity and drama and a bit of color.  This year, the gingerbread house included revelers drinking eggnog on the rooftop, revelers falling to their untimely doom, dinosaurs and cyclopses patrolling the yard, and a few other assorted characters.  Fortunately my real-life family is not quite that exciting.

A gingerbread house with dinosaurs and cyclopses
and partyers falling from the roof,
while the real-life family relaxes without dinosaurs.

How many children do I actually have?   Good question!   Below is a quiz posted on the dining room chalkboard by a pair of my offspring.

How many children do you have?
a) 6, b) 10, c) 13,
d) all of the above (depends on how you count).

As a hint to yesterday's version of the answer, we had thirteen people and one delighted dog at the house.  Gathered together, this was a picture of my Christmas clan.

Thirteen people on my front porch stairs.
I'm the one holding the stuffed tree.

And with my children only (depending on how you count them), here's the "10" version:

My ten children: of the birth, step, adopted, in-law, host, and grand varieties.

We also had remote contact with two more:  our former foster child, C-son, who spent a summer in our home, is now in college and on the football team (he told J-son via facebook).  X-son, whom we didn't quite get to adopt but whom we still support a bit down in Haiti, spent a bit of the evening on What's App with me.  He's been quite ill, and tells me "Life in Haiti is hard".  No kidding.

Having said that, I have to say that one of my favorite presents this year came from my sister, who gave us toilet paper.   The paper came from a very funny B-corp company run by people who

"learnt that 2.3 billion people across the world don't have access to a toilet. That's roughly 40% of the global population and means that around 289,000 children under five die every year from diarrheal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation."

In other words, I got toilet paper that was NOT wrapped in plastic, and maybe someday X-son will get a toilet, so he won't keep getting sick.

There are a gazillion versions of what Christmas means to different people, and I know this is only one of many, many ways to mark the day (or not).   But for me, what a wonderful day.  

A close-up of my only begotten daughter,
the first of what would eventually become a family too large to count.
Well, at least to count consistently.
She made these socks herself.