"I just got lost and slept right through the dawn"

Ok, bear with me as I stuff my face with the indulgent insanities of the Christmas party happening around me. I can hear "Holly Jolly Christmas" playing in the background as I test the salty waters of something called "The Bacon Explosion". Something doesn't quite feel right about that. Strange that I decide to take this moment to reflect on feelings. So, besides the festiveness of the current social atmosphere of the office, I have this lurking Scrooge gnawing away at a slowly-browning apple core inside me.Why that is, I am trying to figure out. The Holidays are supposed to be about friends, family and loved ones. And in the past, I have felt that I didn't have any of the above to share that happiness with. More times than I can remember, I spent Thanksgiving eating leftover pizza or Christmas alone watching all 24 hours of TBS's "Christmas Story". An old episode of "Happy Days" once made me cry because Fonzie was eating a can of corn by himself on Christmas, but was too proud to admit he wanted to belong to a "family". Funny thing is that I have felt that way in my own life. The last few years, that was not the case though, as I was made to feel welcome in Lesia's inviting family. But internally, I always desired something that fate did not grace me with; an Anderson family gathering full of brothers and sisters and drunken grandpas and wives cooking huge amount of food while gossiping about "The Young & The Restless". Exhale... but my "real" family is not so illustrious. This broken gear I "belong to" consisting of an ailing and hard-to-get-along-with-mother, a hypochondriac trucker-mouthed aunt, a burnt-out and overly worked uncle, and three female cousins all in their second or third marriages, has left a bitter taste in my mouth and a longing for the Ozzie & Harriet Christmas's of the 1950's. Being the only son in a fatherless childhood has begun to affect me more now then it did when I was a boy. I watch all my friends and loved ones flow to their families and those welcome mats, where I always felt like I was an outsider, even when their intentions were pure and my presence was entirely desired. That gnawing momentum to have a sense of "belonging" is not something I have yet to cure by going to Christmas parties or Thanksgiving dinners with friends and loved ones. I feel I need a "tether-point", a datum so-to-speak, that grounds me in feeling these people around me are not temporary. Family is not temporary, whether you want them to be or not. Problem is, my "family" doesn't care enough to include me in their less-than-desirable ranting and chaos; which I should be grateful for but I'm not. The last few years, I have had a multitude of highs and lows. From financial woes to heartache to the introspection of where I am and who I have become. And though the ills of some of those facets still plague me to this very day, I think that I will always feel like I am on the outside or "outta sight, outta mind" when it comes to the Holidays; that is until I get my own family to focus on. But not to end this blog in the gloom and doom of everything that I have been spouting here, I just want to say that if it wasn't for the life-saving friends and loved ones that I do have that are my "wanted" family, I would have faded away many years ago. So, to all of them, I just want to say Thank You. You have kept me from isolation. You pulled me away from self-induced depression. You have showed me what the Holidays are about, and made me feel like I belong. God blessed me with the family that my mother and her mother did not provide; one that does not share my last name, but one that loves me nonetheless... and unconditionally.