Why Being a Mommy Drinker and Early Riser was Impossible at Christmastime
The unexpected gift of my first sober Christmas.
I still have the Christmas card my dad gave me 25 years ago with a colorized photo of the Beverly Hillbillies on the front. Granny is holding a jug of moonshine and saying, “Last one blitzed ain’t tryin’!”
In his slanted cursive, my dad added, “I’ve got my jug and no one’s gonna take it from me.”
Every Christmas I haul out a box of my childhood ornaments. I rummage around beneath the crooked angel topper, the plastic candy cane garland, and the Styrofoam snowman until I find the card. It never fails to make me smile, even though I no longer drink, and my dad has been sober for 20 years.
The card is one of those mementos that cradles the essence of my father: his cynical humor, brevity, playfulness. It’s the key that unlocks the gate to my little girl memories like playing pickle ball with him and my brother in the California evening sun or going on long walks to get the wiggles out of our new puppy.
I lean into the past and find an early Saturday morning when we’re eating scrambled eggs and Texas toast at Jake’s truck stop before he takes me fishing. “The early bird gets the fish!” Cold fog hovers between us in the in the gray, metal…
