By Melanie Dale
@melanierdale

Big families are great, except around the gift-giving holidays, when you feel like you need to mortgage your house or sell a kidney to buy presents for everyone. A couple years ago my husband’s sister suggested we start a family gift exchange to handle the lengthening list of relatives on the Christmas shopping list. Her kids drew names for all of us and we each shopped for our assigned person. The suggested amount was about thirty to forty dollars per person.

It was a huge hit. Everyone saved money, and we ended up with some fun combinations of gift givers and receivers. For instance, my brother-in-law got me in the drawing, and I am still wearing my awesome orange leggings with the pockets on the sides, no doubt selected by my sister-in-law. I snagged my bookworm niece and had the best time picking out a new fantasy trilogy for her to start.

My husband, Alex, and I are both the oldest children in our families. We went through puberty first, drove cars first, started dating first, and got married first. Doing life first leads to general and specific awkwardness in situations with extended family. General, like when we’re the first to break out in horrible acne and get oily and gangly and still have to pose for group photos with our cherubic younger cousins with their tendril curls and cheeks as soft and smooth as the babies they just were a second ago. Specific, like when Alex and I were first married and went to the family’s cabin in New Hampshire for the annual reunion and made the mistake of taking a shower together and Alex’s cousin heard us giggling like idiots through the very thin walls and the news was already down to the dock and all over camp before we’d even washed the shampoo out of each other’s hair.

In addition to getting married first, we also had kids first. While Alex’s siblings were still sleeping in and hanging out late, we were awake before dawn trying to keep our kids from waking everyone up, disciplining a two-year-old, and begging toddlers to nap. Now our kids are grown and his siblings are dealing with all that while we sleep in and drink coffee leisurely. While the cousins are on the beach digging holes, building sandcastles, and frolicking in the ocean by eight in the morning, we have kids on phones, kids sleeping till noon, and kids raiding the fridge at one in the morning. I have a kid on the phone to his girlfriend and another texting with her husband who’s deployed overseas.

Over the summer, I spent one of the best weekends of my life having everyone together at Ana’s wedding. She’s the oldest kid on both sides of our families, and the night before the wedding my parents hosted a pool party at our neighborhood pool. My dad smoked not one but two butts, pork butts, and I had all my nieces and nephews and all our siblings together in one place. It’s incredible to see them all together, spanning the stages of childhood. Ana and her new husband Aaron, then the high schoolers, the middle schoolers, the elementary schoolers, and our tiny flower girl. We filled the pool with pool noodles and took photos of Aaron and Ana in floats shaped like wedding rings. Seemed like yesterday that the parents of that tiny flower girl were getting married, and we were adopting our Ana. Different life stages, all important, all equally wonderful and horrible in different ways. We’re done chasing kids and everyone can shower themselves now, including Alex and me.

The cycle repeats itself, with our kids older than everyone else’s kids, which often lends itself to more awkward situations. My kids are great, but they know words and song lyrics that Alex’s sisters’ kids are unfamiliar with. They know the inner workings of Santa and the Tooth Fairy. They don’t know Bluey but they’ve seen Blumhouse movies. And when you combine kids whose ages range two decades, things can get weird.

I feel like my family needs a safe word to remind each other to lock it down around the littles. None of us want to rob anyone of one second of innocence, but sometimes it’s easy to forget what not to say or reveal around little ears. And sometimes accidents happen.

This year for the family Christmas gift exchange, Ana drew the cousin who was her ring bearer in her wedding over the summer. Ana’s an adult. He’s six. What could they possibly have in common? Dinosaurs. Ana owns dinosaur stuffed animals, dinosaur blankets, dinosaur shoes, dinosaur jammies. Her grandmother even gave her a dinosaur paper towel holder at her bridal shower. My friends who threw her the shower served Ana’s favorite food: dinosaur nuggets, AKA dino nuggies (along with plenty of other non-toddleresque food).

Her cousin loves dinosaurs too and has a collection of toys, so when Ana drew him in the family gift exchange, she was elated. She picked out two dinosaur toys that were brightly colored and playful that she thought he’d like.

On the last night we were all together, we started exchanging gifts. Elliott gave his grandmother a framed photo of the family at Ana’s wedding. (I may have helped.) Alex’s brother-in-law gave his other sister a mug with a drawing of her house on it that he’d drawn himself.

Ana gave the dinosaurs to her cousin. He was excited. She was excited. They both could share in their love of dinosaurs. This was meant to be. Oldest cousin and almost youngest cousin together in shared dinosaur love. What a beautiful moment.

He’s a very smart kid and immediately found a button on one of the dinosaurs that turned it on. Ana didn’t know there was a button. She just thought it was cute.

The dinosaur started vibrating.

Ana didn’t know it did that. With it vibrating in her six-year-old cousin’s hand, it suddenly didn’t look so toylike and innocent. It was maybe playful, but not in the way she’d intended.

Her aunt checked the box, and it said “dinosaur massager.”

“I thought it said ‘dinosaur messenger!’” Ana cried, horrified.

Uh, sure. For naughty messages. In all my worries about my kids spoiling the Tooth Fairy or blurting out the f-, d-, s-, or a-word, I never thought to worry about my married kid giving a personal massager to her six-year-old cousin. Oopsies. Her aunt assured her it was a great gift, and they’d just take the batteries out.

Ana was an accidental naughty elf. If anyone needs my kids to participate in a Secret Santa gift exchange, we’re here for you, ready to box up adult toys, split crotch negligees, and bottles of lube.

We may be uninvited for next year’s gift exchange.

Someday when Ana’s cousin grows up, he’ll hear the story of his favorite dinosaur and how it was originally intended to go somewhere besides in a toy box. He’ll hear the night before the wedding at his own rehearsal dinner if Aunt Melanie has anything to do with it.

Melanie Dale is the author of four books, Women Are Scary, It’s Not Fair, Infreakinfertility, and Calm the H*ck Down. She’s a writer for the TV series Creepshow, a monthly contributor for Coffee + Crumbs, and her essays are published in The Magic of Motherhood. She has appeared on Good Morning America and has been featured in articles in Cosmopolitan, Real Simple, The Bump, Working Mother, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Los Angeles Times. To get out of the office, she spent the last few years shambling about as various zombies on The Walking Dead. She and her husband live in the Atlanta area with three kids from three different continents and an anxious Maltipoo named Khaleesi.

Photo by Jennifer Floyd.