What Do You Love About Your Family?

On December 26th, we had "potluck take-out" at our house with the family. Ten people graced our table for the third day in a row, but unlike Christmas Eve or Christmas Breakfast, this meal was unhurried, and less fussy--no good silver, take-out boxes, and several people already in jammies--so, I sort of invented our own version of one of the Dinner Games.

I asked James to pick up his napkin ring and say one thing he loves, or is proud of, about himself. Then the napkin ring was passed around the table and everyone else had to say something they love about James.

Then it was the next person's turn. By the end, everyone's napkin ring had made a complete circuit around the table and many wonderful and funny and loving things were said about everyone.

The most memorable part, though, was very polite, 2 1/2 year-old Sam's contributions. When asked "can you say something nice about cousin James?" her unhesitating reply was "thank you!".

We laughed and continued on.

For everyone, she had the same nice thing to say with varying degrees of enthusiasm based on how engrossed she was in her toys or how much reaction she was getting from the crowd.

By the time we made it to the last participant (yours truly), I think she was a little keyed up, because my "thank you" turned into a general, wordless, gleeful exclamation: "aaaaaiiiiiiyyyyaaaaaah!"



I love that about me, too, Sam!