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The 70-year-old tradition that keeps this 94-year-old partying on

Clutching her black walker, Phyllis Viola offers to show off some moves as she pushes her way to the kitchen of her daughter's Richmond Hill home.

"Oh! Do you want to see me dance?" she laughed.

"I could do the Charleston. It was very popular when I was young."

The dance moves are in preparation for a big party on Sunday.

More than 100 members of Viola's family plan to make the trek to the GTA from across Canada and the U.S. for an annual Christmas party. It's a tradition that Viola and her eight sisters started in 1948.

Seventy years later, the party continues.

Paul Borkwood/CBC
Paul Borkwood/CBC

"It's just not Christmas without the Christmas party," Viola told CBC Toronto.

Though only two of the nine siblings are still alive — Viola and her 93-year-old-sister Regina Conforzi — the family keeps the tradition going, usually on the Sunday before Christmas, except for years like this one where it's pushed back because it's too close to Dec. 25.

9 sisters, 9 husbands and 9 sets of cousins

The nine sisters first got together on New Year's Eve in 1948. That's when they pledged to get their families together every year in December.

They've stuck to it, with the exception of three times when it had to be cancelled because of deaths in the family.

Viola Family
Viola Family

Though the party has evolved over the years, it started in the basement of one of the sisters' houses with the nine siblings and their spouses. Over the years, they added dancing and a DJ and, of course, food.

"We used to get together the day before and we would make polenta —Italian polenta," said Viola.

Because of how large the family has grown over the years, the party is now catered at a hall.

Viola Family
Viola Family

"There's a pile of cousins. I don't know how many we were. At times we were 160," said Joe Boccia, 80, Viola's eldest nephew. He was 10 at the first party and said attendance was mandatory.

"There was no such thing as you didn't come to the Christmas party. The mothers made sure the kids came to the Christmas party," said Boccia.

"The kids would run around the halls like kids do today and then Santa Claus would come. The older guys — which I became later — would get by the bar and have a few drinks."

Viola Family
Viola Family

The party is an opportunity for the whole family to reconnect. Viola and her sister Regina Conforzi — who both live in the GTA —stay in touch but it's not always easy.

"We can't even phone each other because we're both deaf," she laughed.

'There's no family like the 9 sisters'

Viola said the death of their mother at a young age brought the nine sisters closer together. In some ways, she said, the older sisters helped raise the younger ones.

"My mother died when I was two-and-a-half. And my sister was only 13 months old. So it was, like, my sisters were my family ... I don't even know anything but my sisters."

Paul Borkwood/CBC
Paul Borkwood/CBC

The key to keeping the party going, she said, was no one ever stayed mad at each other, and all the brother-in-laws got along well.

The hope is that the grandchildren — and great grandchildren — will keep the tradition alive.

"Oh, I think it'll go on. The younger generation are taking over now," said Viola, who added her two granddaughters are helping to organize this year's event.

Part of that narrative — Viola hopes — is to pass on the story of the nine sisters.

CBC
CBC

"There's no family like the nine sisters," said Viola.

"They go through thick and thin together."