A story about your family gatherings. Nonfiction only, please!
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My grandmother had a great (and often warped) sense of humor. In her late 70s (a riddled with health and mobility issues) she put out a gorilla costume stuffed with towels wearing a clown mask. It sat on her porch for a few weeks before Halloween. People would walk by and jump then realize it was just a dummy. The stuffed gorilla scared even postal workers and her grandchildren the first few times seeing it. Until Halloween night..... My grandmother (again in her 70s!) Put on the gorilla costume with the mask and sat in the same chair motionless for hours holding a bowl of candy. As soon as someone would grab a piece she'd put out her hand and ask for a high five. Some dropped their candy and ran. She'd grab her cane and try to chase after them to give them their candy back which a few times scared them even more. She passed in 2002 and I will never ever forget her laughter as she hobbled in a gorilla costume, cane in hand chasing kids to give them candy.
My mother was a bartender in Boston for many years and pretty involved in the music scene. One night in college my aunt's took me out to dinner. They got a bit tipsy and started telling old stories. Including the time my mother beat the hell out of STEVEN TYLER!!
I've posted this before, and maybe not considered funny to some. But it's so absurd that it made me laugh. Totally absurd story about my Dad. I have a bunch of stories about my dad, everything they do is absurd, but this was crazy even for my dad. So, when I was 22, my texted me, and my siblings, 4 brothers and 3 sisters all adult, and said that they 'were contacted by a woman and turns out we have another sister.' Her name was Abby and she was, I think 34 yr. This wasn't surprising since my dad has a bunch of kids from different mothers. They were known to sleep around a bit. But something seemed off. My first clue was a picture my dad sent of her and she was clearly Puerto Rican. My dad is a very pale Irish ginger. But, genes can be surprise you. She could have favored the mother. So I dismissed it. I talked to Abby and asked her how she found "our" father. She told me that she had hired someone to find her father. Seems ok, until my siblings and I start speaking to each other about our new sister. Turns out the origin story about our new sister changed, and we were told different things. She told one of my sisters that it was random, something like my dad and her mom ran into each other and that's how they found out. Another story, (completely ridiculous) was that she was a patient of my now ex-step mother, who was a therapist, and she asked my dad for a consult, (my dad isn't a therapist, they've studied but is in no way a doctor), but anyway, my dad was 'consulting' and through my ex step mother's description of her patient Abby, he figured out that she was their long lost daughter. The whole thing was fishy and we were all doubting the if this woman was indeed our long list sibling. It's hard to tell what's the truth with my dad. They make up some bonkers s**t! Anyway, a few weeks later, my dad again texts all of us to say that 'Abby was not our biological sister. But she was troubled, and they were helping her, and wanted to rebirth her into our family because we're good people'. They actually used the word 'rebirth', whatever the f**k that means. This was definitely the strangest thing my father has done, but i wasn't exactly surprised by this. My brother and I went over to my dad's a couple of weeks later, where we found out that my dad and Abby were actually dating. The grossest part though was my dad a magnet on this fridge that Abby gave them that said "I love my daddy". 🤢
My favorite (and also kinda wholesome) is the one about my parents (now divorced) getting married.
They marry when I was 15-ish and already had 4 kids. The thing is that they decided to get married on the day on the same day my aunt celebrated her 50th birthday and decided to tell no one. They took us kids to a drop in wedding event at the city zoo, got married (it even got filmed for television) and then we went to my aunts party and ordered us kids to not tell anyone. I was going around the whole party making sure my 7-ish sister didn't tell on them. No one noticed mom's new ring.
Fast forward a few weeks later when they invited all our relatives to our home for the wedding reception by posting invites. The same aunt was on the phone with my grandma while grandma got her post and opened in the elevator up. She then burst in tears and my aunt was so confused until my grandma shouted; "[mom] and [dad] got married!!!"
I got a few more but this is by far my most favorite. (Sorry for long post)