Shrimp Rings & Cheese Balls: A Very Drunken Christmas Eve

Family, friends, and a little bit of dysfunction

A young me with my sister showing off the big Christmas prize. Author’s photo.

“Oh my God how can you stand it out here?” my mother barked as she stood at the door to the garage as we all reveled in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Come inside, you’re all being rude,” she continued.

“Oh, mom, don’t be so dramatic. Come sit with us for five minutes,” my sister coerced.

“No way, I can’t breathe out here. Paul! Tell them to come inside,” she yelled behind her.

“Robin, don’t upset your mother,” my grandmother said as she crushed the butt of her Carlton 100, stood up, and gestured the rest of us towards the house.

“Fine Nana, only because you said to,” my sister replied. She stood up, looked at me, rolled her eyes, put out her smoke, and walked back into the house.

I continued to sit there finishing my Marlboro Light 100 while three of my best friends did the same. We quietly sat there enjoying the tar and nicotine permeating our lungs. Eventually, I figured we’d better go in the house to keep the peace.

The Scene

Christmas Eve at our house in the late 1980s had a weird, joyous, chaotic, but happy charm. My sister would fly in from Michigan, my…