Number 1 Christmas Tradition

Here is my first blog post with the new name. If you had trouble with the switch on your dashboard or Google reader or whatever else you use to keep track of this blog, let me know! I am really hoping that it just “worked” all by itself and that I won’t have to call Andrew Minion fix it. :)

So, its almost Christmas. And I have not blogged about it. At all. My bad.

I had intended to have all these nice little posts about my Christmas traditions, but there are so many of them that I didn’t even know where to start. For real. (If my english teacher is reading this, please excuse me, but it looks like this is the post for fragments.)

So I decided to at least share a few of them between now and Christmas. But I am for real serious about there being too many to blog about. For real for real.

I guess I should start with the basics. My mom’s family has this tradition. And over-riding, above all else, most important tradition. One that almost no member of the family would ever dare to break. One imbedded on our hearts since birth. And that is this:

Everyone must come home for Christmas

And you are saying, who is everyone, where is home, and ... who says?

Well, first of all, my Nana says. Actually said, because she really is home for Christmas, and has been for 7 years. (Wow, how time flies!) But when Nana speaks, we listen. And obey. No exceptions.

Seriously, even if Nana had not ingrained this in our thinking from birth, we wouldn’t want to miss it anyway. It is such a good rule that almost no one would ever think of breaking it.

So who is everyone??

Everyone consists now of my mother and her two sisters and two brothers, their spouses, kids and grandkids. Yeah, all total that is 50 people this year. Now there are a couple of rebels cousins that only come every other year. This year is an “on” year. The “off” years they go to their spouse’s family’s house. Understandable, I suppose. But forgivable??? That is another matter...

And finally, where is “home?”

Home for us all at Christmas becomes my Aunt Susan’s house. Believe it or not, the house is big enough for all 50 of us to spend the night, not just one night, but two! And at least all the adults will get a bed/couch/mattress. Only a few kids sleep on the floor. Yeah, its a big house. The tradition started 35 years ago when my Aunt Susan had just given birth to her second daughter Loralei. Not wanting to go out for Christmas, the rest of the family decided to come to her. At the time the “rest of the family” was my grandparents, their 5 kids, two spouses, and only two or three grandkids. (I think...Aunt Susan did I get that right?) This year, it will be 5 kids, 3 spouses, 14 grandkids, 7 grandkid’s spouses, 20 great-grandkids, and 1 adopted cousin. :) (Yes, I just added it and that equals 50.)

So there it is. Our overriding, most important tradition. I’m almost sure its written in the Bible somewhere. Trust me, if my Nana was here, she would be able to give you the chapter and verse.