The Remix: A Family Tradition

I love my family.

I love getting together with my family.

With 2 amazing parents, three sisters, one brother, 4 in-laws and a large collection of assorted nieces and nephews, aged 3 to 24 , any gathering is an undertaking best described as “organized chaos.”

Our official spring gathering is called the Remix and is entirely grandchildren driven. Since we celebrate Christmas together over Labor Day they thought we should remix Christmas in the spring.

Now every year the grandkids (with Grandma’s guidance) plan a fun- filled week-end at Mom and Dad’s on the prairie.

Some of the traditions include:

White Elephant Bingo: Everyone brings a wrapped white elephant gift and one evening we play bingo. Every time you get a Bingo you get to chose a present – either from the table full of presents, or you can take a gift away from someone who has already chosen one.  Things can get pretty wild as presents start flying from one person to another!

When someone gets a black-out, the game is over and everybody opens their gifts. (Anybody need a talking Bob the Builder and Wendy who can no longer talk?!)

Dress-Up Night : No, we don’t do a white tie meal with tuxes and formal attire, instead, we dress-up as any assortment of strange characters. We had pirates, ninja’s, and some Lord of the Ring characters (swords were definitely a favorite accessory this year!)

But we also had a sweet old granny, door-to-door salesmen, a camel herder, and even Shaun Cassidy (complete with entourage).  The creativity among those young’uns was amazing!

Family Worship Service: On Sunday morning we gather together to sing, pray and share. This year was especially sweet as both of my parents shared their testimonies.

For my siblings and I,  it was a precious review of events we experienced together as our entire family of seven came to know the Lord in just a few years. But for our spouses and children,  it was a look at events that changed the course of our family for generations.

Tears were flowing freely by the time we sang our traditional closing hymn – “Blest be the Tie That Binds.”

There were huge meals, too  many desserts,  games galore,  a family sock hop, and lots of laughter.

What precious memories we made this week-end.

Yep…I really love my family.