During Thanksgiving week our family stayed together in a beach house. That included 20 people ages five to 70. We are the older generation among them. Our family is very active so we knew there would be marathon games. For a week prior, we stretched, ran in place and … Who am I kidding? We mostly rested up. I have to admit, we were scared. People were assigned games to organize and we began in the sand. Oh boy, I thought to myself, here we go. When we are in one of these settings with our family, my husband and I huddle together and say, “Never let them see us sweat!” Our kids sometimes seem to think that we are 90 instead of 69 and 70. If we tell them how many times a hip aches or how we forgot the names of their children, they would make us sit and watch.

The first game was sand dodgeball. We stood on home base and kicked a beach ball. We then had to run the bases. The other team had to tag you out and throwing it at you was allowed. They were ruthless so I called for a pinch runner in the form of my eight-year-old granddaughter. I only tipped over once in the sand and am still pretty proud of that. Several games were physically challenging. Everyone fell at some point, they just got up much faster than we did. Indoor games were challenging and creative. We had a murder mystery night. You didn’t know who the bad guy was so we ran up and down two flights of stairs to stay away from everyone. If you got tagged you were out. You then had to lay on the floor until someone saw you. My husband got tagged and laid on the floor. My son-in-law saw him and asked did you get tagged or did you just fall down?

On the way home we agreed that we did great and had a lot of fun. We weren’t sore or broken and the kids and grandkids were impressed that we somewhat kept up with them. But by the time we got home, we were so stiff that we could barely get out of the car. We survived due to pure adrenaline. I have come to the conclusion that we should just be proud that we are willing to try just about anything. We have spent years proving ourselves and don’t need to do it anymore. We just need to be present with the younger generation, be interested in their lives but do what makes us happy and safe. With sand in my shoes, I am content with the vision that our kids at our age will fall in the sand and yell, “Help me, I can’t get up!”

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Tina Jensen is a member and one of the coordinators of activities for the Escalon Senior Fun Bunch. She contributes a monthly column for The Times.