No pandemic can drown out the noise of a Fresno family’s love at Christmastime

Every year of my life, our family has gathered at my grandparents’ home to celebrate Christmas. It’s been our tradition for more than 50 years. We begin gathering at 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

When we are all there the fun begins with family updates and then the roll call of my granny’s nine children. We sing Christmas carols and finally open gifts after midnight. We even have a full dinner about 2 a.m. It’s 30 to 40 relatives, sometimes more, laughing, singing catching up. The noise is magnified throughout the house. It’s crazy but it’s our family.

This year was a little different. I still went to my grandparents’ home (though they are deceased, my mother lives there). We had a Zoom Christmas. Families were clustered with members they are always with. At 11 p.m., we all started checking in on Zoom. Most of my family is in California, but we have family members in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. We all connected.

This pandemic changed the way we celebrated Christmas but it didn’t change the love that we share. My grandmother, Ruth Vance, always told her children, “if you never have anything else, you will always have each other.” It’s the same thing I have instilled in my children. During the Christmas celebration, my grandmother would just sit back and smile as she listened and watched. She enjoyed seeing her children, grand and great grandchildren together. This was her time of year. We tried as much as possible to duplicate our celebration. We prayed. We laughed. We were loud. Each family even had their Zoom moment with a Christmas song. Some even made up steps to go along with their songs. It was fun. There were plenty of smiles. We saw each other. Of course we had several conversations going on at the same time. “Mute your mic” was said plenty of times. And we even sang our epic 12 Days of Christmas, out of sync and all.

We made the best of it. It wasn’t the same, but some good came out of this pandemic….for the first time in years, all nine children were together at Christmas even if it was via Zoom. No one was absent during roll call. My younger cousins didn’t understand why we couldn’t celebrate Christmas as we always had. Some were upset. Others disappointed. This is something we look forward to every year. It’s all we know. My aunts and uncles said we would sacrifice this year, stay as safe as possible and prayerfully, we can all be together next year for Christmas.

I said all that to say I love my family. I love our tradition. And Granny, now I know why you smiled through all of it...that noise is the gift of love that we share. After all these years, the noise is even louder. We still have each other. That’s love. That’s my family. No pandemic can take that away.

Happy holidays, everyone.