HOW MANY FAMILIES DO YOU HAVE?

In this world, we all grow up in a diversity of cultures.  At the very least we find ourselves surrounded by diverse family cultures, if not diverse racial and nationality cultures.  At no time during the year does this truth slam into us more vividly than from Thanksgiving in November to the first week in January.  We begin to live it from the first moments of our socialization process and extends through our entire lives.  For all of us it is brought home to our consciousness early because of the behavior of our parents.  For others it takes some more subtle forms, but it is present in every family.  It doesn't go away.  It is an indelible impression that we bring to the grave.  Belle asked me a question the other day that made me think of this.  She asked why, when I was talking religion, I almost always quoted my maternal grandparents.  When the conversation was more about the secular side of life, the Dion side usually was the source of the stories.  It was not an easy question to answer, frankly.  I never gave it too much thought, if any.  But over the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about it.  In the interest of protecting the guilty parties, most of whom are looking down upon this composition from an exalted eternal abode, I will be careful to remain neutral here.
Our first home is the first place where we learn that there are at least two families to whom we owe allegiance.  It gets more complicated as we grow older and some of our dear, older relatives get married and the population of aunts, uncles and cousins expands.  This is but the first degree of complication.  The second degree of complication is more intimate.  That is when siblings get married and we see our parents torn by the jealousy caused by the need to share the relationship of their children with another family.  This is all the worse than the jealousy of sharing their relationship with the family of their own spouse, who happens to be our father or mother.  That's the source of the whine, "Well you know, he HAS to go to the Bonenfant's first before coming here later."  Oh boy!
In some cases that is all the more complicated when the real cultural change hits and Daughter marries someone from a different language group.  Then Son goes out and marries someone of color.  Then someone has the courage to say, "We're all getting together at "Great Walrus's" house for New Year's Eve."  ["Great Walrus" is my official American Indian name.]  That's when you know that your family has diversified.  That's when you know that you are not alone in this world.  That's when you discover just how much, or how little, of a chameleon that you are.
We all go through it.  It's a very interesting experience.  The stories I could tell from under my own roof are both humorous and sometimes sad.  They are all diverse.  I can tell you safely that my first degree circle is: I, European, [French Canadian], Filipino, American Indian [Southwestern U.S.].  It is always interesting.  Never a dull moment.  I never thought it would ever serve as a topic for an autobiographical sketch.  The nice part about it is that no parents, dead or alive have been injured in the making of this story.