It's called Grab Bag

Traditions are really important to me, especially over the holidays (remember my Sound of Music baking tradition from the last post?) This year, I wanted to share with you another tradition I've been doing the last couple of years in my family. The tradition itself actually started a LONG time back when my dad was just a boy and his grandparents used to do it with him. It's called "grab bag," and it's really quite a silly thing.
First step in grab bag, is that the older adults (grandparents in most situations) purchase various small token items. From my childhood I remember things like notepads, original flavor chapstick, pencils, post-it notes, etc, mixed in with a few large token items, like a wrapped $5 bill, or a watch. Since I've gotten much older, my sister and I now take care of the grab bag purchases for our nieces & nephews, and we like to hit up the dollar store for random finds like crayons, markers, playing cards, games, and other such silliness. We try to keep the items gender inspecific, and fairly cheap, since the idea here is unfortunately quantity over quality.
Now that all the items are purchased (we end up with about 60-80 total usually), wrap all those babies up! This is a time consuming process, but the kids really love opening each one, so it's worth it in the end. All the wrapped gifts go into a big black trashbag (this is not debateable, and the only recommended vessel for such sacred gifts) and then you begin play. The bag looks a little something like this:

Grab bag close-up and with my sister Claudia & happy kids!

Rules of the game are somewhat loose, and quite honestly, my Dad makes them up as he goes along. Grandparents (Grandpa's specifically) are generally the "caller" while Grandma (or me) decides how many winners we'll have for each round. Each kid gets one number from a deck of cards for play, i.e. 4 Aces, 4 Twos, 4 Tens, etc. The caller then has 2 other decks of cards, which he shuffles. Ideally then, the kids turn over their cards so they're all facing up, then the caller takes his deck and starts calling off the cards he turns over. The object of the game is that once all your cards are called and flipped over, you yell "Grab Bag," and you're a winner. You get to go grab an item out of the large trash bag, which naturally, everyone else covets. Other rules of the game entail that there's no peeking into the bag, and no fishing around to touch everything. You have to grab the first item you touch. Obviously, this game goes on for quite some time with so many gifts. Sometimes the caller will make it extra hard on the adults too, by giving them 4 cards of generic call/suite. That way you really have to be paying attention when cards are called instead of just watching for 4 of the same.

My dad, the callerGeneral game play

After several hours, and several breaks for snacks and the restroom, grab bag finally completes when the last item from the bag is taken. Now begins the trade portion of the game. Everyone displays all their items out on the table, and you start working your magic to convince the other players what item of yours you'd be willing to give up for another item of theirs. This is grab bag gold. Because while you may not want that Hannah Montanna jump rope that you ended up with, your niece definately will, and might even be willing to give up her Reeses's tree for it. Jackpot my friends, jackpot.

My brother Eric scores bath salts with nephew ChaseMy niece Olivia with her final loot

So there you go, an explanation of one of my silly little traditions. I have such fond childhood memories of the game, listening to my Papa call numbers all the while bickering with my Grandma. Little me munching on Aunt Janet's famous chocolate chips cookies while giggling with my brother and 5 cousins that one of us got the dreaded chapstick again. Those were the good times, and because of them, I'll continue the game as long as I can for the generations to come. Some old habits die hard...