If your huge extended family is anything like mine, you’ll know that most of these, if not all of them, will apply to you and your crazy family.
1.The family reunion is always a good time because no matter what, you have a glorious selection of cousins to hang out with, and if you get sick of them, your aunts and uncles can be fun, too.
2. Family game night is probably the most intense thing you’ll ever experience. From Monopoly to Pictionary, the competition is hot and yelling is a given. “I got it first!” “No, we won!” “You’re all idiots.” are some of the common phrases that come out of my family’s game nights.
3. Talking over each other and being involved in three different conversations at once is a skill you’re grateful for and cherish because you know it makes eavesdropping in crowds a piece of cake.
4. Bringing people to meet your family can be a very overwhelming experience for them, and a picture-based family tree will benefit them very much. If they can learn who is who, they know who to avoid and how to survive a family get-together.
5. Mixing up names is a frequent occurrence. After a few tries, they get it right.”Melissa, Abigail, uh Kyrsten, Kimberly, Jennifer, ah Alexandra!” is something I’ve heard from all of my uncles.
6. There’s always more food than necessary between the massive amounts of meat and strange kinds of pasta salad you’re not sure where to start, but if you love food, this is your version of heaven.
7. Going out to eat as a family is a heart attack on the restaurant owners, and it’s best to call ahead. In the past, we’ve showed up 40 at a time, and it takes forever to get seated, so if you call ahead, they have time to cope with the fact that they’re going to have a terrible night.
8. Family party? Sure thing. 3-9? Not happening. Some people will be gone around 9, but a lot of them didn’t plan on leaving at all. You’re lucky if they’re all out by midnight. They can sit and talk for hours about nonsense.
9. Good luck trying to use the bathroom. There is a line, so you leave but, when you come back, it’s longer. Holding it in seems like the only option because if you decide to wait in that line. you could spend 15 minutes talking to your Great Great Aunt Whatshername about her last doctor’s appointment where they found a spot on her back.
10. Road Trips, whether you’re traveling to vacation or somewhere else, stopping every 30 minutes for a small child to pee is just second nature. You get a call from a cousin in a different car that you’re stopping at the next exit because “Tyler drank an entire bottle of juice and now he’s about to pee his pants,” so you do a telephone train to contact everyone and let them know.
11. Family vacations are a pain, and organizing group activities is even worse. Getting more than seven immediate families to free up the same time in their own schedules takes weeks before vacation to do. Also, by the end of the trip, other people are scared to go into the pool because it’s basically family property for the duration of the trip.
12. Birthday parties, graduations and weddings are always packed, but you always get tons of money if it’s yours. If it isn’t, you’re probably going broke because it seems like everything is happening back to back. They’re like mini family reunions throughout the year.
13. When something happens, everyone knows within the day, whether it’s a death, a fight or a breakup. One person finds out, it seems like they call two people, then those two people call two people and that will go on forever until it gets back to you that someone spilled the beans, and you know everyone knows.
14. No matter what happens, though, they’ll always be your family. We may fight, we may flip chairs and scream, but we will never stop loving each other. Blood will always be thicker than water, and when someone messes with one of us, they’re messing with all of us.
