Holidays with my cousins were a lot more like cage boxing than Hallmark Christmases. I had more than forty first cousins, mostly wild animals. By the time my aunts and uncles herded them to the scene of the crime, they just opened the car doors and all Hell broke loose. Exhausted from defending themselves and the babies on the ride over, it was every man for himself. God help anybody in the way.

They’d rip through the house under the guise of needing the bathroom and a drink of water, destruction in their wake, before being cast out into the yard or to the barn if it was raining, like demons into swine.  While they passed through, they destroyed anything in their wake.  We always hid our loot, but the evil little devils usually managed to mark something for destruction, even if it was no more precious than a dish…