Cousins: The Holiday Nightmare
It’s Christmas dinner at Grandma’s house. There’s all sorts of foods surrounding the table and everyone’s mouth is watering with the thought of digging in and devouring those scrumptious delicacies. Of course, like every Christian family, you have to pray first. Before you can even start the prayer, your two-year-old cousin decides that he is above the law and digs his hand into the bowl of mashed potatoes.
Almost everybody has them, and almost everybody hates them at least a portion of the time. Cousins. They’re like siblings, but they don’t live with you. Now if you're me, and your parents are divorced, now guess what! You have two times the cousins that you get to see every holiday! (insert extreme teenage sarcasm here) Yay!
I have a total of eight cousins. Five on my Dad’s side and three on my mom’s side. (With a pair of twins on the way.)
On my Dad’s side, we have what I like to call My Brother’s Army. Mostly because what he says is law, and if they disagree, they get a twisted wrist. So my conniving older brother likes their task to be: Operation: Annoy Hannah Eternally. So they come in (while I’m in the basement peacefully playing a game) guns blazing. They throw things, they mess up my game, and worst of all… they send the attack pugs to love me to death.
On my mom’s side, however, my cousins are less annoying. Probably because they’re between the ages of two and five. So you could say that Christmas dinner is very peaceful. For now at least.
By the time I’ve graduated from high school and started college, my cousins on my mom’s side (the ones I can currently stand) will be my age, and again, and the cycle will start. I’ll be avoiding those family events in favor of things on my dad’s side, enjoying the sweet, sweet freedom that comes around when My Brother’s Army has finally matured.