December, Family, and the Specific Luck of Good In-Laws

I want to write something true and a little sentimental this month because December makes me feel that way and also because I have genuinely good in-laws and the world does not celebrate that enough. There is a whole industry of in-law complaint content out there and I have always felt slightly left out of it because my experience has been the opposite. My in-laws are people I actually enjoy spending time with, which I recognize is not universal and which I do not take for granted.

Good in-laws are a quiet gift that compounds over time. They show up without making it complicated. They celebrate the wins and sit with you during the hard parts without requiring that the hard parts be processed through them first. They have opinions but they understand that some opinions are not theirs to have. They are interested in you as a person, not just as an extension of the family member you married. That last part is rarer than it sounds and more valuable than most people realize until they experience its absence somewhere else.

December at our house is about the food and the noise and the slightly chaotic way that a group of people who love each other fill a space. It is about the conversations that start at the table and migrate to wherever there is still room to sit. It is about the kids who grew up and still come home and the comfort of people who have been in your corner for years showing up again like it is the most natural thing in the world. Which it is. Which is the whole point.

I spend most of the year solving problems. That is literally my job. Something is broken and I figure out how it broke and I fix it and I document the fix and I move on to the next thing. December is the month where I try to slow that down enough to actually notice what is not broken. What is working exactly as intended. What I had a hand in building, both professionally and personally, that is holding up and serving its purpose. The answer, this December at least, is quite a lot. The goats are healthy. The chickens are opinionated. The infrastructure is stable. The people I love are nearby or on their way. That is a good year. I will take it.