On account of there being way too many people in the family (on the one hand, if someone is going to be reproducing it's better that the literate, attractive, intelligent and religiously & politically moderate families of which I am a typical member, be the ones to have the babies. On the other hand, that is a whole F-ton of people to keep track of), we decided to stop celebrating individual birthdays for the siblings and sisters-in-law and our parents, and just had one party in the middle of the year, with each person drawing a name out of a hat to buy a single birthday gift for.

Now it may surprise some of you here to learn that I am not very in touch with my feminine side, and I find buying presents for women to be very awkward, even my rather tomboyish sister. As an example, when Brother 4 became engaged, my other main single brother (number 3) with whom I collaborated on Christmas gifts and I decided she had to be included on our gift-giving list (we don't do this 'Secret Santa' crap on Christmas, ironically). We barely knew her, so he suggested we get her an apparently generic chick-present of a gift basket of soap and lotion and scrubbing tools and wipey things, and his suggestion prevailed (as I had no better ideas), over my objections that the message it seemed to be implying was that we thought she was dirty and badly in need of the items in our gift. Despite my hesitation, it was well-received and our future auxiliary sister assured me she was not offended in the least. So you can see, my radar isn't very good for this stuff. Since they got married, though, they've been busy breeding like good Catholic wives, so baby-themed gifts have been my rule of thumb, or else a present for the couple together. Being female, they resent reminders of their eventual infertility and partial uselessness, so there have not been a lot of birthday celebrations for them, and my need to procure gifts for adult women alleviated (in my defense I would like to point out that I kick ass at buying presents for females under seven, so far. Even when they are going through the phase where Uncle Cannoli frightens them, and they can't bring themselves to meet my eye when I hand them the gift, they generally love my presents).

So naturally, I was hoping that I would draw one of the parents, brothers or even the sister I had been acquainted with for two or three decades. Instead, of course, I drew not only one of the auxiliary sisters, but the one with whom I have the shortest acquaintance, and the "girliest" of the three. Well, I did manage to come up with something, albeit with some maternal advice and a lot of legwork, along with being responsible for procuring the birthday cake.

I went to get the cake and found out there were two cakes waiting with our name - my sister apparently thought I was only going to pick it up. So we had twice as much cake, and I had the satisfaction of receiving superior acclaim for my cake. Hers just had Happy Birthday and our initials, while mine said "Happy Birthday (Cannolis)! 437 Years!" Cannoli. For. The. Win! Boo yah!

And at birthday time, it turned out that there was another flaw in the gift-selection process. Not only did I end up with the person for whom I was least suited to buy her only birthday present of the year, but due to my father and I having the same name, and both my sister-in-law (number 1, not number 3, whom I drew) and youngest brother drew a slip of paper that said "Cannoli" on it. His said "Cannoli 3" (my father is Jr. & I'm the 3rd) and hers just said "Cannoli". Being a decent and well-brought-up lady, she does not call her father in law by his first name and never thought of that name referring to anyone but the one person she addresses as Cannoli, she gave me a gift basket (actually Staples paper crate) of my favorite snack foods, which my homeopathic enthusiast, herbal remedy prescribing, vitamin-popping father did not necessarily share. A brief confab determined that my brother's gift (a Clayton Kershaw jersey) would be interchangably appropriate, so that went to my father. I settled for the ton of Mountain Dew and Doritos. (Winning! )

And my own gift to my other sister-in-law was very well received. On thing I have noticed in my dealings on such issues, spending a couple of decades lowering everyone's expectations really smoothes over events like this. Back when I was the best man at the wedding of Brother 4 & Auxiliary Sister 2, I was informed that I was required to give a toast. So I whipped up something generic, short and sentimental on the limo ride over, read it out at the reception and had tons of my relatives congratulating me on what a nice speech it was. This pretty much just reinforced my opinion of these things as pointless and stupid and lowered my opinion of those who set stock in them...until a few years later when one of the other auxiliary sisters confided in me that the bride-to-be had been dreading my speech. Apparently, I was not a popular choice for such an "important" wedding role, which in hindsight, explained things like the matron of honor, my first sister-in-law (yes, two of my brothers married girls who were childhood friends, it's so sweet and touching and their kids can LEGITIMATELY call them "Aunt" and squeeee! ), giving me an admonitory shake of the finger every time our eyes met during the service and Mass. We were seated in a semi-circle in the sanctuary, which is the only reason I ever did make eye contact with her, and I found it a bit insulting that anyone would believe that after 29 years I would be less than attentive, or at least well-behaved, in Church during Mass - this was so well-known that at the next wedding, I was asked to serve on the altar, along with a seminarian friend of the bride. But once I realized that everyone expected me to improvise some comedic gesture or something, I suddenly understood a. the Cannoli-watch mentality of my sister-in-law (she of the Doritos gift) and b. the effusive praise for such a milquetoast...umm...toast. They were all expecting a lot worse. I imagine that my current birthday gift recipient was probably expecting something hideously inappropriate, if delightfully humorous (a quality women not of this website generally seem to have difficulty appreciating).

SNAFUs in the gift exchange department aside, however, it is AMAZING how much more fun a party is WITHOUT children! Now, granted, my neices and nephews are among my favorite non-fictional, non-historical people in the universe who don't contribute to the post-season prospects of the Giants, Dodgers or Devils (and no one seriously entertained my suggestion of naming the nephew who was born on the day of the 2008 NFC championship game after Plexico Burress in honor of his achievements that day). They are tremendously entertaining, and almost make appealing the prospect of being metaphysically shackled to a short, physically-inept, emotional person with no sense of humor, direction or priorities for the rest of your life if you end up with kids like that.

But you tend to forget how luxorious it feels to carry on a full conversation with someone with them stopping to fuss over whether or not the kids are being fed or kept from killing themselves with ordinary household implements, or to horse around in the pool without constant importuning to "throw me in the deep end, Uncle Cannoli" or "push me on the raft, Uncle Cannoli" or "catch me when I jump in, Uncle Cannoli" or "climb up and jump off the deck railing, Uncle Cannoli". There is a slight downside to being the fun uncle, and it becomes particularly noticable as you get older, and your stamina can only take about two turns through the whole roster of neices and nephews old enough for playing (that's anywhere from 2 to 7 kids, depending on how many brothers show up at a given family gathering). Also, they absolutely suck at hide and seek. Seriously, the next generation of my family is the Egwenes of hide and seek. And when I play, they all want to hide with Uncle Cannoli, but can't keep quiet to save their lives, so I get caught too. Or they get bored when they can't find me right away, leaving me to crouch on the toolshed roof staying below the peak, for maybe a half hour until I hear that they have given up and are doing something else now. IIRC, six year olds had more follow-through when I was that age.

So it turns out that family gatherings, where you can talk with brothers and sisters and auxiliary sisters in straightforward fashion, and even use curse words (we're in Jersey, okay? ) freely, are something to be treasured. We all took that condition for granted when we were younger, and then nine years ago or so, when the breeding started, suddenly the most interesting thing at any given party was the way a larval human could grip your finger really tight. When Brother 2 and I pulled into the driveway, a quick survey of the cars led him to comment that "...at least some of the Pequannock crew are here". When I asked why only "some" he pointed out that Brother 3 and Auxiliary Sister 3 only had their sedan here, and that they could never fit all three of their kids and car seats in that thing... and then he realized that none of the kids were invited. That's how ingrained the fact of the kids has become...the idea that BOTH of them could be there in a car that only seats four was outside of his cognitive process. Without three crawling age babies to watch out for, it was the first time, ever, that all ten people from our generation were in a swimming pool at the same time. And there were alcohol bottles and cans all around the sides, in a way that we'd never allow if the kids were present, lest we set a bad example for the rugrats (NOTHING that could damage the liner may be near the pool! A harmless beer bottle today, juggling machetes tomorrow). So there was all kinds of fun, from the more staid married brothers finally cutting loose, to parents (ours) cracking dirty jokes, to taunting those who don't have HBO or access to pirated video streams about the latest season of Game of Thrones, from making jokes about how much the kids would fetch on EBay, to posing for family pictures that are over in two minutes because everyone is facing the right direction the first time, to everyone still hanging around past nine o'clock.

All in all, I think it explains a lot about my personal philosphies and viewpoint that in so many ways, interacting with my family teaches me the value of moderation and aiming low. Kids are fine in moderation, and successful interactions are much easier when no one expects you to get them right. Managing your expectations is pretty much the secret to life. Man's reach should exceed his grasp...but you don't know exactly how far out of your grasp adult fellowship & cameraderie is until you have to navigate the exhausting labyrinths of keeping children from crying and meeting the arbitrary and contradictory parameters of acceptable female standards for social events. Message boarding strangers is usually very much the way to go.