IslanderView Digital Magazine January 2018 | Page 9

propriate to celebrate everything to-
gether. Christmas, sister’s birthday,
and nobena. Family would come and
celebrate with us and the party grew
bigger and bigger each year, espe-
cially as we all got older and contrib-
uted to the celebrations with grand-
children, financial support, more fam-
ily, more friends and new traditions.
One fun thing I added was to take my
hubby and go grab a small, inexpen-
sive gift for EVERY kid in the family,
first cousins kids included. Why?
I noticed we would have so many
gifts under the tree and around the made everyone party with genuine
tree every year and during the no- smiles. I loved that!
bena Christmas celebration, all those
kids would be in awe and some were Christmas at our house was always
brave enough to go looking if they special with mom. After she passed
happen to have one! I felt so bad on in 2004, right before Christmas,
about that and started wrapping everyone felt lost.
smaller gifts and we’d issue after din-
ner by calling each kid’s name. They Today, we all live separately but
would be SO HAPPY! We even in-
come together to celebrate. Now
cluded the “old ladies” in the family at every sibling has a nobena!
one time. Those are the aunties,
mom & dad’s sisters and sisters in
law. It became a tradition for us and
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