GRANDPARENTS: well these ones are dead
PARENTS: this one’s easy
SIBLINGS: okay you gotta be careful because you might mix up stuff your brothers did but still. pretty simple
AUNTS AND UNCLES: okay so you got about fifteen of these. a lot of them smoke cigarettes on the porch which is an easy tell. if you got someone older than your parents that’s probably an aunt or uncle. couldn’t be a grandparent (see earlier). some of these dead too
COUSINS: statistically a relative is one of these.
SECOND COUSINS: well wait shit. i guess not because a lot of those cousins got kids. and those are actually closer to you age wise than the cousins are and there's more of em. getting out of hand a bit here. statistically a relative is one of these.
THIRD COUSINS: we like to call these “false nieces and nephews”
FOURTH COUSINS: that’s my dude Chase. good kid
if you're at a big thanksgiving with like 22 long island people and the only other person who is not blood related or married to anyone other than you is a teenager named Chauncy: that's your cousin now
When it's thirty or forty people you can start collecting fake cousins at a truly rapid pace.