Words on Christmas and Drinking.
Start a tradition in your home with the real spirit of Christmas: Whiskey.
I’d like to think that I participate in a very traditional-esque Christmas. It’s worthy of noting that I do not spend christmas in a white, 1920s farmhouse with Frasier Fir wreathes ornamenting a five windowed-facade, hiding single white-wax candles burning in each, cardinal-red shutters, a red cedar door, and a tin, snow-blanketed roof. My holidays, like many other less-fortunate peoples’, aren’t Hallmark commercial film-sets. In fact, Christmas is a dirty reminder that we are all poor and struggling in a financially tight and culturally dystopian state.
But none of that seems to permeate the cheer that the holidays bring. Some spirit, the big, silver-bearded man perhaps, brings a sense of peace on Earth. Then, the news is turned on and another teen has been murdered in a school, the shooter committing suicide. The turkey in the oven has burned. The uncle is drunk gibbering racist slurs about ‘Mexicans’. Children are running around, one of them crying incessantly and the dog can’t seem to stop his bark. It’s no wonder people drink from the onset of December 1st, when the radio station deejays set their playlists to autopilot, like every year, and pull out a bottle of whiskey in the studio, get drunk and ramble. I’m with them.
“A bottle of whiskey for Christmas, Mom. Tell Grandma that’s my Christmas wish this year.”
When I have kids and when I’ll have to pretend to believe in Santa Claus, I’ll ask my children to tell the mall santa that they wish for a case of bourbon, preferably Bulliet (the 10 year.) And he will be shocked for the split of a second, until he remembers the metal flask tucked lightly in the side of his left boot. Then, he’ll let loose my kid, who still clinging to his polyester coat from Party City, is crying and tell him to have a Merry Christmas, sigh at the realization of his own demise and wave the teenaged-elf helpers to bring in the next hopeful kid, snotty and sick with the flu, but full of an endearing light that sizzles out at some unknown age in all of us.
The only real known truth is that the holidays’ seem to bring us together, even if that time spent with family and friends is a burden, an annoyance. But by my best estimate, drinking over the holidays has always been normal, even when your family is not, even when the idea of the holiday is not when viewed at a distance. But try by all means to implement some tradition into your home. A good festive cocktail goes a long way, a fire, card-games, a rich-meal. Find a way to make the season merry and bright. Bright, white-whiskey infused eggnog is a good start.
