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Jenna's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 11/26/00 -------------------- 11/25/00 11/24/00 11/23/00 11/22/00 -------------------- Jenna's Introduction

November 24, 2000

Happy Thanksgiving! This has been such a nice holiday. The day started early, as has every day this week. We had a light breakfast and watched the parade with the children. By 10 a.m. everyone in the house was awake. Mary and Lea, my aunt and cousin, helped grandma and grandpa with lunch. I helped Mary and my Mom wrap gifts for this evening and we played a little football with our boys. Aaron, my 2-year-old, made some great tackles. At 11 we put Aaron and Anne down for early naps because we were planning to have lunch at 1:00.

This was our first year having Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's side of the family and we were not sure what to expect, but when 1:00 rolled around, we were not disappointed. We had tons of food and it was fabulous. We ate like pigs and talked. Instead of taking our traditional naps this year, we watched TV for a while. After a while, Mike and Elizabeth and their kids arrived and soon after them Ted and Kim and their babies showed up. We had to wait a little while for everyone to finish wrapping gifts, like I had said before, last minute gift wrapping is somewhat of an unofficial tradition. Before much longer we had kids coming through, asking "Are you ready to open presents?" Which can be literally translated to "Grandma said that we will open gifts when everyone is ready, so are you ready because I really want to see what I got."

Here is how Christmas works in this house. There are four generations present -- my grandparents, their four children and spouses, 11 grandchildren (including me) and my husband, and three great-grandchildren (my three kids). We exchange names, married couples are adults, so each adult draws the name of another adult and each child draws the name of a child. Each person then only has to buy for the number of people in their family plus grandma and grandpa. On Christmas, whenever we celebrate it, each family takes turns giving out their gifts. Gift are generally given out one at a time so that everyone can see what each person gets. After all the families have given out their gifts, my grandparents give theirs out. Grandma is notoriously fair. She has been known to include a dollar or two in a gift if it was a dollar or two less expensive than the others. She is also a box counter. Each person gets the same number of packages. It was one of those things that make her so charming.

We had a blast. The kids got wonderful gifts, and so did we, but I have to say it is bitter sweet. We know that this is the last Christmas we will have together for at least three years. We stayed up late talking and then the men went to my uncle's house to watch movies and play video games and the women hung around and planned tomorrow's shopping. Mary, Lea, Elizabeth and Jordan are all going to be at the mall at 6 a.m. I'd like to go, but it seems exhausting. I'll go later.

I imagine that each person's tradition, no matter how sacred it is to her must seem a little strange to someone else. I have to say, it was simple, but today has been a very good day.