marvelous night for a moondance.

This Christmas, my aunt Tracy got a Dance-Dance-Revolution game. Well, sort of. It’s more of a mat that lays on the floor and you step on the lights. It plays a raucous symphony of sounds, a cross between techno and a band of insane people armed with Casio keyboards. When the wrapping paper was pulled away, our whole family breathed out a "Whooooooa."

It was the hit of the holidays. My little cousins tried it, Tracy tried it, my aunt Julie gave it a whirl, and finally, my grandmother. And watching her, bad hip and all, bounce around on a plastic mat blaring a crackpot medley of beeps and laughing hysterically, became one of my most treasured moments. As she danced, I realized something that has taken me twenty-five years to grasp – your family may be the only ones you can ever really count on to laugh with you, rather than at you. They are the ones you can trust to love you even if you are weird, if you miss a step, if you laugh so hard you can’t dance anymore. And they’ll try it along with you.