Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Day 1: Family Facts

Hi. I'm Alicia. I'm the second oldest of 4 girls. We're spread out from age 20 to 32. I have one brother-in-law, one boyfriend, and my two younger sisters both have boyfriends named John. My mom and dad are still married. My mom is one of 5 kids--2 boys and 3 girls--all are married and have children and some have grandchildren. My dad has a brother who has a daughter and 2 sons--all with kids of their own. My family is big. My family is loud. My family drives me crazy most of the time. But. I love every one of them because they are mine.

I've learned lots of valuable things from my family over the years, and i'm going to take these October days to write some of them down.

Lesson 1 for today is: Family is Important. I learned this from everyone. My mom's family is quite large. Both of her parents have died in the last 10 years, so currently there are:
10 adults/parents
17 kids (+6 spouses and 3 boyfriends)
11 grandkids

Every "Christmas" we get together--as many of us that can make it--and we hang out. We sing. We stay up too late. We open presents. We celebrate. Most years it's actually New Year's when we get together (that's why I used quotation marks). We spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our individual families, and then everyone who doesn't already live in Middle Tennessee travels there to join everyone else around NYE/New Year's Day. It's amazing. Sometimes not everyone can make it, but we make the most of it with who is there and miss the ones who aren't. We eat a lot. We dance a lot. We love each other. We Christmas. I know that's not a verb, but that's the best one I have. It's awesome.

The reason I know family is important is that my cousins and aunts and uncles will put their lives on hold to come be with everyone for 2 days. Some drive 8 hours just to be with the family. Family takes sacrifice. It takes time and compromise. But it's worth it when we're all together. Even when we fight, we wouldn't trade our fights with each other for peace with anyone else.

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