New Year's BINGO!

When I was married into the Jensen family, and first heard about their New Year's Day tradition, I didn't think much of it. But . . . I participated in it, and I was floored! The Jensen's have a coolest tradition that is the brain-child of Dev's dad, Larry. He collects great prizes throughout the year for this occasion. Anyways, it is BINGO as you might have played, but there are a few twists that make it Ultimate BINGO! Here's how it goes. Everyone gets two BINGO cards. When you get a BINGO, you pick a mini candybar from the huge bowl in the center of the table. (If you figure it out, that's a lot of candybars for BINGOs from two cards!) Anyways, the utlimate is a "blackout" (where the entire board's numbers have been called). When you get one, you yell it out, and your name is placed on a list. Because you have two BINGO cards, you get two blackouts. After everyone has gotten one for both cards, we start picking our prizes. These are the essence of the game. We have, for the last 3 years, chosen to get prizes that have to do with emergency preparedness. So, we have great camping gear, first aid kits, and other emergency stuff that you want to buy, but don't get around to. Anyways, everyone picks out their prizes according to the order that they got their blackouts. (It can get a bit competitive with the really coveted items!) So, it's a great day. We do it every year in 2 sessions: the kids' BINGO-with just fun prizes, and then the adults' BINGO with the emergency preparedness items. Well, it's a great tradition, and we enjoy it every year. THANKS PAPA JENSEN!

Our nieces, Sariah and Brooke getting excited for BINGO!

Here's 1/2 of the kids' BINGO prizes, and Devon's bro, John.

Here's the other 1/2 of the kids' prizes!

This is a picture of BINGO in action. The big bowls in the middle of the table are full of mini candybars. YUMMY!