Naturally, carting two boys around, they’re bound to get hungry – as if there’s any getting hungry to it. With my three, I don’t think the hunger ever really goes away, they just seem to forget food and replace it with something like a hot girl or video game.

We decided to hit up a pizza joint so I could have the salad buffet and they could order what they wanted.

I sat in silence, amazed at the words that spewed from their mouths when the waitress began to take their order.

Each kid ordered a medium pizza and an order of breadsticks. That was their meal! EACH!

The waitress chuckled, made some tongue in cheek remark about boys and walked away.

When she returned later with the bill, she whispered to me that she had not charged me for the buffet. She said we mom’s of boys have to stick together.

I know it’s not right to remove items from someone’s bill like that, but when it’s a buffet and the like, I think they have a little room to play with. Regardless, conversations ensued and I found myself in awe of this woman who was obviously worn and tired. When she told me she had SIX boys, I felt I should bow at her feet or something.

What I did, seemed the only thing I could do – was to leave her a very nice tip.

I’ve been a waitress before – I know the job is very hard, the people can be difficult and to even take partial responsibility for raising six boys (in a blended family) on a waitress salary is tough.

I do have to wonder what it is about teen boys that makes them such a bottomless pit? When does that never ending need to eat end?

While it may sound as though I’m making a lame attempt at being funny – I kid you not, when it comes to teenage boys, it really is cheaper to dress them then it is to feed them.

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My husband and I were each previously married — with children. That’s two parents with three children — none of which have more than one parent in common. And the two youngest also spend time with their other parent (my eldest child’s father is deceased). In short, we have what is called a blended family. Only I don’t like the term ‘blended family’ — so I refer to us as a Chicken Pot Pie Family, where we each try to retain some of our individuality, including previous family traditions.

Those of you with more so-called traditional families remember those first few years of struggling to decide just who’s family you’d see on Christmas Eve, where you’d eat Christmas dinner, and if and when you might just have some time for yourselves to start your own traditions — but with blended families, it’s even more complicated.

Even supposedly simple things like Christmas tree decorating.

In an ideal world, all five of us would be together to select the tree and decorate it. But that nearly never happens. And when it does, it’s not so timely.

My son is roughly 600 miles away and so I have to wait for the holiday break from school to get him here — and his break typically begins on Christmas Eve. Not the best day for tree selection. Nor is it convenient to drive that tree back 600 miles. And the middle child may be, per divorce decree, with her mother that particular year.

So our new family holiday traditions are neither traditional nor consistent. We fly by the seat of our pants. A lot. We have good intentions, we hope; but the calendar and other family obligations dictate (mess up) our meager plans.

Some years I wish we could just skip the whole Christmas tree thing. It would be a whole lot easier. But like most parents, we by-pass the easy route and try to do our best to maintain some magical family memories — even if that means the tree stands naked and forlorn until December 27th or so when all five of us decorate it together.

We carefully try to observe and preserve what traditions each child may have had, by doing things like alternating year by year just who gets to select the tree topper, so that previously traditional favorites remain part of holiday memories.

Afterwards we sip some hot cocoa or eggnog and munch a few cookies — and then we open our presents.

It’s not what Normal Rockwell painted. It’s not what you or even I envision. But it’s the best we can do.

What do those of you with complicated families do to make or keep holiday traditions?

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