This Thanksgiving hasn’t been much different from any other. Same people (parents, brothers, sister and family); same place (my mom’s house); same menu (turkey, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, turkey, pie). We drink, we play cards, we snack, we eat tons for dinner and we talk. It’s been that way for some time. And it’s fabulous.

But one little thing changed this year. We decided to draw names for Christmas instead of everyone buying everyone a gift.

This might seem like a small thing, but I think we’ve been in denial for awhile that our family is growing. It’s been especially difficult the past two years to shop for two families, let alone two growing families. Cody has two brothers and one nephew. I have two brothers, one sister, two nephews and one niece. If you include parents and spouses, I’ve had 16 people to buy for. Gifts start becoming “how cheap can I get this gift” as opposed to “what would they really like?”

As we sat around after dinner, discussing how we would do this. (Would it be like a Secret Santa? What will the minimum spending amount be? Can people draw their own spouses? Is the 7-year-old included, and, if not, does everyone still buy her a gift?) This conversation literally lasted 30 minutes. We were going to keep it just between siblings, but my two nephews are getting older (18 and 13) and wanted to be included in the name-drawing, even though we warned them they’d only be getting one gift this year as opposed to lots. They decided that was OK, so Mom wrote all our names on paper and put them in a bowl. The rules: you have to keep it a secret, you can’t draw yourself or your spouse, and the minimum spending amount is $35. (I found it amusing we settled on a minimum and not a limit, but “sky’s the limit” seemed to suit everyone much better).

As the bowl was being passed around, I marveled at how big our family has grown, not even in numbers but in size. My oldest nephew is 18, almost as tall as my husband and with a voice just as deep. My second oldest nephew is TALLER THAN ME with a voice that got deeper since the last time I saw him two months ago. My 7-year-old niece is growing like a weed. Over the past few years, we’ve added my husband Cody and my oldest brother’s girlfriend Lesli. We even discussed adding a kid’s table next year as mom realized we literally couldn’t fit another person at the table, even though my sister’s kids are getting too old for a kids’ table and anyone that Cody and I might add won’t be old enough to sit at a table by themselves for another two or three years.

I can remember going to my grandma’s for holidays when I was younger. The cousins outnumbered the adults, and there was never a lack of someone to play with. But now the cousins have grown exponentially with spouses and children. I hardly ever get together with the extended family, but I feel like I am watching my immediate family grow just as big right before my eyes.

It’s exciting because there will come a day when my nephews will bring girlfriends, and someday fiances and wives. My niece will bring a boyfriend (but not till she’s at least 35, according to her dad), and Cody and I will, we hope, bring children.

I love it. I love that even though this holiday seems like the same old thing, it holds so many possibilities. In the future, we’ll be able to have more than just two Euchre games going at once. We’ll have to cook two turkeys, and have twice as many pies. We’ll have to sit at multiple tables, agree on which football game to watch and squeeze even more people into our group photos. We may have to plan a little more ahead and be a little more accommodating.

And we’ll definitely have to add more names to the Secret Santa name drawing.

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