Christmas in the Boondocks

This Christmas weekend was great, but there were definitely some weird developments:

1. It's official - I am the favorite grandchild of my grandparents. They brought me over a gift to open with just my mom and dad in attendance and I was not to speak of it to my cousins or my brother. What was it? An afghan that my grandma won in their church raffle. I don't particularly think I did anything special to deserve this status as the favorite, I just think my grandparents appreciate that I graduated college, keep in contact with them, and have made something of my life.

2. My cousin M's wife has apparently decided that drugs are more important to her than her husband or her 1-1/2 year old son. So she up and left and now M is raising their kid. He has two older sons from his previous marriage that help out once in a while, but other than that he's pretty much doing it on his own.

3. My cousin L and her husband have taken in a 16-year-old boy whose parents have no desire to raise him. Apparently every weekend the boy's parents would give him some money and tell him to get lost until Monday. L and her husband know his family and decided to give the boy some direction. His grades have improved and he now has a stable home environment.

For the most part my family is good people. Unfortunately they tend to get mixed up with the bad seeds sometimes. That tends to happen in those small towns which is why I'm so glad I got out when I did. I only wish some of my cousins had too.