Hammer Time

Apparently, in Hubby’s family, Christmas Eve is Hammer Time. I’m not talking about MCHammer and his magical pants. I am talking about BoozeFest of the year. And for Hubby’s family, that means a lot. Let’s just say I’ve seen them all mixed-taped on more than one occasion. Since we have previously split Christmas Eve and Christmas between families, spending the Eve with mine, I had only heard of said Christmas Eve debauchery; I just had no idea how intense it really was. A tradition started by the neighbors, whom Hubby’s family visits every December 24^th, involves Aquavit and pickled herring. If you can think of anything grosser, you win. This wonderful family tradition usually entails teetotaling mother-in-law driving everyone the 100 yards home and some points of blacking out by many. In the case of 2010, when our families combined, things got even better.

Combining families can be stressful, and stress can cause, well, drinking, especially in people who a) drink a lot anyway and/or b) often self-medicate with booze because of awkwardness and random bursts of enjoying extreme drunkenness. Plus, it’s the holidays (When else can people drink if not during the holidays? They just spent their year’s paycheck buying crap for otherpeople, they deserve it). If a 12 pack, four bottles of wine, free-flowing scotch and vodka, and two (or more?) rounds of Aquavit among six drinking people is not enough to make us all comfortable together, then I don’t know what would ever work. But I can tell you what happened here, from the eyes of someone who was Fetus-Friendly among boozehounds: The same two people spilled two beers and an enormous glass (aka bowl) of red wine, all on white-ish carpeting; More than two people slurred their speech during the Yankee Swap, which was not even the last event of the night; There was at least one red-faced tackle during said Yankee Swap; This tackler confessed to booting for half an hour upon arriving home, which I find magical; Father- in- law stole at least five fondue meats from my dad, who finally had to say something in order to get any of the evening’s meal (did you know fondue sets are smart and make it so you can tell whose little stick-guy is whose? Well, they do); people actually ate the pickled herring, which obviously is due to being inebriated. This is just a sampling of drunken activities I witnessed. And I have so many weeks before I can participate in this type of activity…That’s okay though, really.