If you grew up in a large family, holidays and special occasions were anything but ordinary. Planning and preparing for family functions seem to take the same level of hard work and organization as attempting to gather an entire city at a single time. Here are just a few of the realities that are present at every family event. As the holidays approach, these can be expected this Christmas as well.
1. There is no Christmas dinner.
Your family is so big, there is no one time everyone is available to get together. So, instead of everyone gathering around the table for one meal, Christmas is celebrated as one continuous open house from the morning of Christmas Eve until 10 or 11 p.m. on the 26.
2. You feel obligated to prepare anyone who joins you.
If you bring a friend or significant other who has never met your family, you warn them of what to expect several times leading up to the event. And still it never seems to be enough.
3. No, seriously. I mean big. Keep guessing. Higher. Higher. Now double that and you’ll be close.
Because no matter how much you stress the size of your family, no one seems to understand until they’ve experienced it.4. "Whose is she?" is asked instead of "Who is she?"
Because it’s easier to remember which relative brought a guest than it is to learn yet another name when you can hardly keep all your first cousins straight.
5. What’s one more person?
Most of the time, though, the house is so crowded that most people don’t even realize the extra face.
6. Are we related?
It’s always best to assume that unknown lady hugging you is some long-lost great-aunt, because in all honesty, you’ve been coming to family functions since the day you were born and still manage to meet a relative every time.
7. Parking is like a game of musical chairs.
If there’s an open space to park, you’re probably early, and every time people leave, at least four or five cars have to be moved and rearranged to let them out.
8. Everyone has a specific dish they bring every year.
Because trying to coordinate a plan for the meal every year is impossible and confusing, and it’s just easier if everyone does the same thing year after year to cover the bases. This is a fairly effective system until someone decides to mix it up and there is suddenly two crock pots of green beans and no corn pudding.
9. Personal space does not exist.
Look, we’re lucky we fit everyone into one house as it is. Extra space to accommodate your personal bubble is a luxury we can’t afford right now.
10. There’s a waiting list to hold the baby.
If there’s a baby, and there’s always a baby, there is also an order of people waiting to hold it. Those in line take their positions very seriously, and if you ask to hold the baby, whoever is next in line will not hesitate to inform you of this and to wait your turn. In fact, people are often ready to fight to defend their place in the order if someone threatens to jump in line.
11. There’s no such thing as an "inside voice."
In fact, there are so many different sounds and conversations happening at once, that you probably speak louder inside the house than you do outside just to be heard by the person next to you.
12. Now get a picture of the girl cousins under age 10!
The family is much too large to ever successfully get a family picture with everyone, so you resort to smaller sub-group pictures like "just the siblings," "the great grandkids," or "the college-aged cousins."
13. “Megan. Melissa. Madeline. You -- Jimmy’s oldest.”
You go to every family event and still get called the wrong name at least 38% of the time. Not that you can take it personally, though, since you forget at least one person’s name at every function.
14. Team sports are more practical than traditional games like charades.
The family is too big to divide into teams for typical holiday games, so games like football that incorporate more players are often the more feasible activities.
15. Which is probably why games are rarely played.
Everyone opts instead to crowd into the small family room to watch football instead. This still provides healthy family competition though since there’s always bickering over which game should be on or what team should win. And it doesn’t matter what channel the family settles on because there will still always be someone opposing every call.
16. If you’re a member of a large family, holidays can be a bit stressful and entirely overwhelming, but you would take it over a traditional Christmas every year.
