I have my brother’s gift buried in a russian nesting doll of boxes, wrapping paper, memes and scotch tape lol

  • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Have a huge extended family. Reached out to as many as I could to offer to pay for the publication of 1 extra “family xmas” card of their family’s Xmas cards they were guna send out anyway. The 1 extra card I paid for each had me as a +1 in their family Xmas portrait to send to my mom as a prank. I’m a single 37y/o dude who has never bought a xmas tree much less sent out Xmas cards. Started the adventure in the fall. Traveled to 3 states visiting cousins abroad.

    The first card that arrived to my parents made it all worth it. It was one with my closest of age cousin and his new minime addition to the family. So my mom thought it was such a well thought out and loving joke that I visited them and did their xmas card portrait with them. Then the next one came and the next and the next and the next and the next…

    I’m not say I batted a thousand but I got a very respectable industry share of the 20 something 1st cousins and 49 total 1st cousins and once removed 1st cousins (kids of my 1st cousins). It made my family’s holiday season. My mom was in tears laughing telling our Texas relatives what I did. Between that and the retropie I made for my dad, I’m not guna lie, I fucking killed it this year.

      • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        A good holiday will never come from the gifts you recieve. It only comes from the effort you put into the gifts you give. Your effort you put in will always trump the money you put in from the eyes of whoever is the gift unwrapper.

    • fefellama@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      First off, that’s a great gift! Funny yet super wholesome.

      Secondly, holy crap you have a lot of cousins!

      • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Just about 50 on my mom’s side and 5 on my dad’s side. To anyone else looking in tho you couldn’t tell that it wasnt 55ish full blooded siblings. Look, sound and act all alike on my dad’s side and on my mom’s side we all have our grandma’s heart and grandpa’s outrageously inappropriate personality and humor.

        Worst part tho, we all live in a small town. So you start totalling up the unfuckables like cousin’s spouses and all the 2nd and 3rd (just to be safe) cousins… and you arent making it out of middles school without the go to pickup line, “Are you my cousin?”

      • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Lol naaaaaa.

        Well not naaaa ciz your, “almost half” call is correct but the math is way off hahaha.

        It’s 49 total cousins between 1st cousins and 1st cousins once removed. Not 69. A first cousin once removed is the technically correct way of describing your 1st cousin’s kid’s relation to you. I always called them 2nd cousins but a lemmy post from earlier this year taught me the correct term is 1st cousin once removed.

        I wanna say I have 27 1st cousins. Those 27 could make a total possible family count of 27 if they were all married with kids. I’d guess the actual number is really more around 18-21 total families. It’s hard to count them all when factoring in divorces, adoption/taking in other people’s kids etc.

        Out of the actual 18-21 families I needed for 100%, mom currently has 9 cards with 2 more I think still in route.

        Still, that is so funny tou basically hit the nail on the head swinging blind folded 🤣 thank you for the laugh and Happy holidays, homie!

        Edit: the importance of the 1st cousin’s once removed bit is because my mom is the youngest of 12. So some of my oldest 1st cousins have kids older than me and the actual 1st cousin is the same age as my mom.

        Actually I may have fucked that up. There might be more actual families than what I said because a couple cards were kids, parents, and my actual 1st cousin being the grandma. That was only 2 of the families I photo cameo’ed with tho.

        • CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          If it weren’t for your retropie post and the fact that she’s gone no-contact with our dad, I’d question if you were my sister, because this sounds like something she’d do with almost the same family size/relative ages.

          • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Fuck now I wanna pour my life out to you and see how many more similarities we share cuz I have totally gone awol/no-contact with my father over major life disagreements. Use our two experiences as a case study for nature vs nurture affects loljk. Cheers to you and your sibling for being my personality doppelganger 🍻 and happy holidays, homie!