Family pinata party

Every year for Christmas my family does a pinata. I think this tradition is more than 30 years old. Growing up we did it every Christmas Eve as my mom's part of the "program." (Everyone was required to do something for our program, and my dad always did impressions of us -- which were hilarious until you were embarrassed by your own -- and my mom always did a pinata.) But since we've gotten so big and people are so busy during the holidays, we now do it after Christmas.

In the "olden days" we had a hook installed in the roof of the basement so we could do it in the warmth of our house. Then as people started getting married and upping our numbers, we had to move the tradition into the garage. Fortunately my dad has some awesome heaters we could put out there, and that worked for many more years. Recently we have had to move into a church. Since we don't think we should install a hook there (or at least aren't tall enough to ;) we use the basketball hoops for our ropes.

My dad LOVED to move the string up and down and get it swinging all around. Those movies you see where the pinata is still and the kids hit it? Not in this family. The person running the string (the father of the family) gets it moving so they have to make a lot of misses in addition to a few hits. And it's always hilarious to watch a person get whacked by the pinata without knowing it's coming. (And, by the way, no serious injuries yet.)

The tradition is to start with the youngest child first. They get a few hits before the bat moves to the next youngest child and so on. (Oh, I should clarify, too, that now that we have so many kids each family does their own pinata. Can you imagine all 20+ grandkids all trying to get in on one pinata? They don't make 'em THAT strong! :)

Anyway, with that said, I finally got smart (just this year) and decided I need to take a picture of my kids with each year's pinata before we get to hitting it. In the past we've had Nemo, a candy cane, Buzz Lightyear, Dora, Sponge Bob, Hello Kitty, etc. Here they are with this year's, a reindeer:


Of course, before we can get to pinatas we have to eat dinner. However, since we all know adults want to socialize a whole lot longer than do kids, my dad has started bringing his big remote control truck and chasing the kids with it. They LOVE it! I had no idea how much they loved it until this year Zachary asked if he could wear his Sunday shoes. Why? Because his gym shoes have a huge hole in them and his boots make him run too slow -- he needed the perfect shoes to get away from the truck. They are hilarious to watch running away from it!


After some good running around we got to the pinata. This is like a second Christmas with this much fun. :) Anyway, it's a blast of a tradition and I should make a photo book just of our pinata-hitting attempts ...

Speaking of attempts, here are this year's:

Austin's first pinata ever:


Shayla:


Zachary:


Tyler:


Becca:

(The pinata was already had by this point, but we told her to beat it anyway. Her clenched lips are so she won't stick out her tongue, but she did anyway. :)

Anyway, thanks mom and dad for such a fun tradition. It's a blast we all look forward to every year!