Being away from home--whether it’s five, or hundreds of miles away--you definitely learn to appreciate your family. Nothing beats the feeling of being reunited with your loved ones during the holiday season, especially your cousins.
For others it might be different, but for some of us, we had been blessed enough to have been born into a special friendship, the type where its bond is so pure that it truly cannot be broken. Your cousins have been there since the very beginning. They are the O.G. homies.
Not only do they make random family gatherings bearable, but they also make the holidays, which are already destined to be the most perfect disaster, the absolute best.
The number of reasons is infinite, but here are some as to why your cousins are the most precious friends who make the holiday season the greatest:
They’ve been there since day one.
They are your most trusted confidants and know you inside and out. They know just about every little thing that’s happened in your life, whether it’s good, bad, or ugly. They also won’t forget to remind you of the most embarrassing. But fortunately for you, they were probably right by your side during some of these incidents. It's extremely likely because you spent more weekends together than apart, with sleepovers basically being an automatic routine to the point where your parents had to pretend they would say “No.”
Plus, you even have an obscene amount of self-made home videos that documented all of the misfit adventures you’ve been on together. You know their likes and dislikes, whether it is food, other relatives, teams, and pretty much just about anything. Life as a whole is just better with them and because of them.
They’re the only people that truly understand how crazy, beautiful your family is.
They live and experience the dysfunction that occurs amongst your family, especially the pure chaos that is in full swing during the holidays. The dinner table is inevitably where it all comes out and everything is fair game. It’s guaranteed that tears will roll down your cheek solemnly because of the pure bliss in the atmosphere discussing past memories. Especially the kind of stories where there are different, very different, perspectives on what happened.
When you're with everyone in one setting, it's no surprise when it comes to chirping in some of your current plot twist life updates, with what one would consider no filter. The insanity is never questioned nor is it ever judged because that’s just how it is. You can also appreciate the fact that although it took roughly 20 something years, you’re officially no longer at the kids table with you know… the actual kids. The dysfunction is real, but you love it, and learn to love it more and more each time you’re reunited.
You see yourselves in the younger generation of cousins.
The age gaps amongst cousins usually always somehow work in 10-year increments. The leaders of the pack are usually in their twenties and stick together, meanwhile the soon-to-be teenagers stick together. The best part of the age gap is literally seeing yourselves in the younger ones through your own siblings.
You get to firsthand see what our parents saw with us. You see the laughter, the little fights, and just the concept of “sticking together” as a whole and it brings laughter and joy to your hearts because those were the best days and they don’t even know it yet. Although the younger ones are indeed younger, the older ones still don’t mind hanging out with them because they mesh well with us anyway. Their humor and views on things are indescribably funny. They’re us.
You’ve already started planning what the holidays will be like in the future once you have kids.
Traditions, traditions, traditions. Every family has their fair share of traditions and even more so during the holidays. No matter the age, the little things won’t change, nor are they desired to. You already know that no matter where life takes you, you’ll still remain together, and it's guaranteed because of how close our parents are with each other. That crew in and of itself is “goals.” They have their own crazy stuff that they talk about from their past, whether it's before or after us, but they do so often. They truly love and care about each other, and it’s already known that that’s how it will be when we’re in their shoes.
Time is slowly creeping up on us, and part of us wishes we could go back to those days, but instead is completely looking forward to the future-- which is why there has already been discussion as to what activities and new traditions we will introduce while still incorporating what we’ve done growing up.
You might see some more than others for various reasons, but no matter what, you still love each and every one of your cousins.
But for the ones you always see, here’s to the future and spreading the love. Our children have no idea what they’ll be born into, but at least we can guarantee it will be with some of the best people in their lives. It will only be better because everyone's new family will be involved.
Let’s just pray that our parents are mentally prepared for a whole new level of fun, chaos, and dysfunction- even though we low-key already know that they’re slowly counting down the days.
