TreeHouseView

I envy families with fun traditions. Growing up, my family’s traditions seemed to center around church and food, neither of which seemed very fun. If we weren’t eating together on a holiday, we were worshipping. There were never any exciting traditions like games that were played every year and memories from the revelry made that could be laughed at for years to come.

When I married my husband, that all changed. My family is good sized, as I’m the youngest of four and my older sibs are all quite a bit older and they all had several children each whom I grew up with because of the age difference between my and my sibs. My husbands’ family is even bigger, in particular his moms’ side of the family, as she is one of five children and the annual Mellick Family Christmas get together on Christmas Day was something to be anticipated with joy and a healthy coating of dread.

At its peak in 2019, we probably had upward of thirtyt to forty family member (taking into account random friends/extras) in attendance, which may sound like a lot to some, and like a measly amount to others. None of the family members who hosted on a regular, yearly rotating basis had very large homes, so putting that number of people into the limited square footage available–and at most. maybe two bathrooms for all of those in attendance–which made it feel like way more people than it really was.

Bingo was the name of the game for Mellick Family Christmas, and had been since the Days of the Grandparents (my in-laws’ parents generation). Nobody had dared to try and change things up, at least as far as we knew. Why would they? Why would you fix what wasn’t broken? Who wouldn’t want to spend hours in a cramped, hot, overly-filled room with semi-drunk relatives you only saw that one time a year playing unending rounds of Bingo for bottomless prizes (Secret Santa-style wrapped regifting-type ‘prizes’ that each guest was “encouraged” bring)? Hours and hours of fun. HOURS.

I thought it was the Bees Knees for the first few years that I was in attendance. What fun! What memories! Our kids were young and loved to play any kind of game, and they loved being involved in what the adults were doing. One year there were “adult” prizes vs. kids prizes and the jokes that were born from the “adult” prize category are lurid and legendary. My favorite year in Aunt Susan’s garage-turned-dining/Bingo hall for sure.

Toward 2019, which was the last year we were all together, as 2020 brought and end to all gatherings and whatnot (save the hallelujahs for later) the large gatherings had started to sour a bit. Political leanings were causing friction among quite a few family members, a few marriages were on the rocks, and for myself, my tendency to want to stay home and hibernate was winning out over my yearning for socialization.

Covid gave us the out we were looking for, the perfect excuse not to gather, and we haven’t done it since. The abrupt end to an era is the Bingo prize that we had been hoping to win but woudn’t have ever put in the form it arrived in. Most of us in the “younger” generation had voiced that we were tired of the expectations that had been passed down to us from generations long gone, and how were we supposed to establish our own traditions with our own families when this day was entirely taken up with this long-instilled custom that seemed unbreakable?

Here was our chance–we were free from the tradition. As restricitions loosened from the Covid shutdown, my mother-in-law and her sister tried to ressurect the Christmas Day tradition and got such measly attendance that first year, they deciced to do away with it altogether. My family was one of the non-attendees. We were able to ski on Christmas Day as had long been my husbands dream, or stay home in our pj’s after the morning gift unwrapping craziness was over, which was my dream.

I think we’ve started some of our own traditions, as non-traditional as they might be. My sugar cookies and baking and frosting/decorating extravaganza that goes with them, opening gifts on Christmas Eve after dinner at Grandma and Grandpas, sitting around with the shark-cootchie board watching movies into the early morning hours knowing we don’t need to get up before dawn because the stockings have already been emptied, and a few adult-themed stocking stuffers for the kids who are now adults that they now look forward to every year…and what I hope doesn’t ever change is our kids wanting to come home for the holidays.

They stll ask every year if we’re going to play Bingo.