Chapter 31: Christmas Visitors

Christmas was a joyous celebration for everyone in the circle of friends. Some scattered to the winds for family in other states and a few had relatives come to them, including Ellie and me. I was grateful that Jake and I each had a three-bedroom house, because that meant we could sleep our close relatives without needing to use motel spaces.

Ellie’s mom, Grace was a long-time divorcée and a psychologist of some kind in Portland, Maine, where she lived. Anna’s widowed father, Garth, was a technology consultant and lived in Columbus, Ohio, near the university. Jake and my parents, John and Cat – short for Catherine, lived in Chapel Hill. Our dad was an exec for a large package shipping company, and mom taught anthropology and sociology at the University of North Carolina. They were each in their early fifties.

Jake, Anna, Molly, and Nicky came over after we got back from Dallas, and together with Erin and Amber, we strategized how to tell them that we each were living in a large, polyamorous relationship with more than one woman in our beds. Molly and Nicky had been adopted by Jake and Anna as their live-ins and bed mates. Everyone switched around almost every night anyway, so where one actually slept was always an open question.

Beyond our live ins, we had frequent mid-week visitors that slept over – both male and female. For instance, Stacy loved me and besides going on a midweek date with someone, she often spent another night in my bed. Cole often came with her and used our guest room, sometimes with more than one female rotating through his bed for a loving evening.

Garth, John and Cat knew Anna was Jake’s ‘serious girlfriend’ and had met her or him many times on video calls. They did not know that Jake and Anna lived, made love to, and slept with additional partners.

John and Cat plus Ellie’s mom did not yet know that Erin and Amber lived, loved, and slept with us. All the live-in co-eds offered to stay at Erin’s parents’ house, but we promptly said, “No, that’s not who we are.” We kept things as they would be given what we called a ‘normal’ and authentic situation.

We would not hide our home situation, and further, we would be open and honest about our overall polyamorous group and how we behaved. Each of us grit our teeth unsure of how our news would be received.

Everyone’s parents arrived for Christmas three days before the holiday. Anna’s father flew down from Columbus, and she picked him up at the airport that morning. Later in the day, Grace arrived on a flight only a half-hour later than John and Cat. Ellie’s mom and my parents met before we got married and again at our wedding but hadn’t seen each other since. I picked them up at the airport and brought them home.

Everyone gathered in our large living room for the collective welcome, and everyone included Jake, Anna, Ellie, Nicky, Erin, Amber, Molly, and me, plus Garth, Grace, John, and Cat.

To facilitate things, I had each person introduce themselves to the others. The four parents were slightly puzzled why we had four young women with us. They understood the two ‘primary’ couples – Jake and Anna, and Ellie and me – but were unsure about how Erin, Amber, Molly, and Nicky fit into the picture. The introductions were personal, talked about their classes, majors, internships, and such, but didn’t cover the larger perspective that would answer the obvious questions.