Family is a state of mind

 Nanny Linda with her 5 grandsons.

Let me start by saying I'm blessed with a wonderful family...loving husband, three noisy yet kindhearted (except maybe toward each other) sons. Parents and siblings who've supported me through thick and thin. And grandparents who are still around to teach me how to make flaky pie crust and use backwoods Arkansan sayings like "useless as tits on a boar hog" with proper twang and intonation.

So I've never felt that I'm lacking in the family department, and it's a joy every time we get together.

But this year, I spent Christmas with my husband's family. And to borrow a Will Ferrell line, "it was glorious." Glorious because this group of people has been celebrating special occasions together for more than 40 years. And get this. They don't do it because they're actually related by blood or marriage. They do it because they choose to. By my understanding, it started when three friends, none of whom had many other family members in town, decided to get their husbands and kids together for holidays. Now those kids, who are more like siblings than childhood friends, are grown and are bringing kids of their own to the mix. And they're as close as any "family" I've ever known. 

Since Robb and I have only been married 3 years, the boys and I are relatively new to this extended family. But you wouldn't know it from the outside. They took us in immediately and made us one of them, as though we'd been a part of them all along. So now, along with the 4 super grandparents and 3 great-grandparents my kids have known and loved all their lives, there's a whole new set of grandparents to spoil 'em rotten: Nanny Linda, Grandpa Bob and Grandma Judy, Grandma Ann, and Papa Jack and Grandma Judy.

It's a true family, born of choice for them. And chance for me.