Reflections on Big Familes

Big families are fun and ours is simply exploding. I grew up in a large family. There were 5 girls and 3 boys and we have added 21 grandchildren for mother and I don't know how many great grandchildren or great-great grandchildren since then. I personally have 17 grandchildren and we are expecting one more in June. Holidays used to be especially wild. We would gather at mother's house at Christmas and Thanksgiving and even if all could not be there it was always a wild boisterous group and loads of fun. There would be games going on at tables, football games on the television and if the weather was nice outside, more things going on outside. My sister Joy's five boys were especially interested in wildlife and you could always depend on them to find a frog, or snake, or turtle, or bird or bug or spider or two to keep things interesting.

Thanksgiving 2007 was a celebration of that fact. As many of us that could got together at my mother, Doris Kennington's house and celebrated once again. We fed close to 30 people and with the group that came over later, we had 36 people there. Mother loved every minute. She has always been so proud of her family and loved all the little and big ones. She is proud of their accomplishments and just loves being around whoever can come. We had Neale and Carleen from the Rockwall, Jim & Misty and their three children from Wichita Falls, and Robin and Rodney and their two children from Hobbs, New Mexico. These were the ones from out of town, but we also had a large group from Lubbock to join with us to make this special for mother.

She said that it reminded her of when we were younger when we all had little kids and it was such a mad house at mother's for the holidays. We used to set long tables up in the garage to feel the crowd. I guess we had 35 to 40 people or more in those days. She has been sick lately so we are not sure she will live to see another Thanksgiving so we are so grateful that we went all out last year.

I have talked about what a special person mother is. She is the true martriarch in our family and she is the glue that has held us together all these years. There was always room at the table for one more and always enough food to go around and then some. She started planning weeks in advance and even after she was unable to cook anymore, she always wanted to be sure we were going to have a special day and meal.