Holiday Drinking and, Hey, What Else Can I Put On This Christmas Tree?
You know what?
If I said that really condescendingly it would be a good insult, but if I say it with a smile it sounds like I am about to tell you something, and I am! There is one thing I like to do before I sit down to write blogs. Nope, guess again, I like to put on some groovy tunes! Well, hey, let’s get real: it’s about a week into December and from what I can remember I am getting weak in the knees with anticipation. Am I anticipating the antifreeze? No! I’m anticipating the poinsettias, mistletoe, wreaths, ivy, holly and evergreens! As I began this blog I put on one of my all time favorite Christmas songs: “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
Go ahead and press play there, it makes a good background track.
I think by :19 seconds everyone should be feeling a little tipsy. That is because ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is a great reminder that A) Christmas is a particularly great day to be drunk and B) The area around a Christmas tree rocks. I’d like to tackle these two topics in the next few paragraphs, let’s do it!
Holiday Drinking:
There is a lot to talk and joke about when it comes to the holidays. I even once read that David Sedaris (who is sooooooo hilarioussssss) once wrote a book of all these funny Holiday type stories. That may have happened. He may have actually written two volumes of Holiday fiction. Possibly with another coming out this year which incorporates some thematic elements from Aesop’s fables. I actually do remember reading something about that– that David Sedaris was releasing a third book of Holiday-related fiction, this time involving some of the morals of Aesop- what I’m trying to get at here is that the holidays are a gold mind for comedy and fun ideas. Sometimes I forget to realize that I have not yet realized the full potential of these occasional days.
Por example, I did not realize until this Thanksgiving break how creepy the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is. Well, not creepy really for me. I’m not “creeped” out by the song, because I’m sure when it was written it was considered pretty cute and not like a rape song*. But at the end of the day when the snow has settled and we look Santa in the eyes, someone is going to have to say, “You know what ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ describes a rape.”
That’s one of the harder facts of Christmas that you will need to swallow after a certain age. Another much warmer discovery that you will have around your 17-21 years is that drinking on a holiday, particularly a December-based holiday, is a barrel of laughs.
One of the number one best things about drinking a beer, or a glass of wine during a holiday party with the family is that you start to not be bothered as much. You will drink your drink and soon find yourself saying, “Oh OK, this is fine.” You say, “All right, this family holiday party is like falling asleep suddenly when you aren’t parachuting, ie: not the worst thing that could happen. And you start to fall asleep to the political talk. Soon you are tasting ham. Soon you are putting gravy on something. That delicious, stomach-burdening numbness of domestic celebration. It’s like a waking dream.
But, that’s only the foundational base of holiday drinking: let’s talk about the fun and how to expand it! There seems to be some way to incorporate 8 shots into a menorah. I can see it now:
MARIO: (Holding a menorah with liquor in each of it’s 9 candle holsters) “Hey Luigi, you want some-menorah shots?”
You can add snow to your drinks, another great way to garnish some more holiday spirit. Maybe sneak some beers to your younger relatives? That could be a fun and collaborative effort. Something that I enjoy immensely around the holidays is the excellent amount of television on TV. Sitting on the old suburban couch and watching some cable with a pal, what could be better?
Well, for starters adding some beers. Where else can we add some alcohol? Maybe you find yourself at a holiday parade– I would suggest a Hot Toddy in a travel thermos. You are warm, drunk and thus warmer. If you are still luckily enough to be getting a “stocking” as a gift as well as under-the-tree gifts, then maybe this year you will be luckily enough to get a nice cold one in your treasure tube. Santa isn’t allowed to carry beers on the sleigh, but it might be pretty funny for you to go stash yourself a beer in the middle of the night. As the rest of your family opens their presents with crust in their eyes you will be opening yours between sips. King of the world! You will feel like it was YOUR birthday! Drinking on a holiday will remind you that you could haveenjoyed yourself on a day off even if it was 2000 years ago**.
Hey, What Else Can I Put On This Christmas Tree?
OK, so I’ve reminded everyone of why it’s fun to be drunk and some ways on how to mix drinking into the holidays. Now I would like to remind everyone of the second thing that the song “Rockin Around The Christmas Tree” reminds me of: Rockin Around Christmas Trees. Let me ask you a question:
Do you have an electric guitar nearby your Christmas tree?
Do you even have a Christmas tree?
I’m sorry folks, but from here on out this blog is denominational. The holidays are done, it’s Christmas tree talk now. You know what idea I love? Strings of popcorn around a Christmas tree. Let’s maybe add some more items to that string: soft pretzels, sour candies, donuts, clementines, buckets of fried chicken? All of these are potential beads in your snack chain; I suggest we start adjusting our boughs.
What else can we do with Christmas trees? How about spray painting them wacky colors? I’m talking neon colors. They have glow-in-the-dark spray paint, pretty cool. Maybe spray your tree all black, macabre but brutal. Do we need to limit ourselves to evergreens? Could I supplement with a palm tree or maybe even a jukebox? How close can we get a hot tub to the Christmas Tree?
These are some of the questions I think we need to be asking ourselves as Christmas approaches. How and by what means am I going to get drunk and how can I set up the coolest space around the Christmas “tree?” The clear connection between these two concepts is that you are going to want to be in the vicinity of that rockin’ tree when you are getting wasted on Christmas. In doing so you are closest to the presents (and hopefully your secret stash of present-beers). You are also hopefully close to a guitar and strings of snack food. What else will you be close to? Hey, that’s up to you.
Happy Winter!
*PS. If you have been reading you may have noticed that DJ and I stopped writing on this blog for a year so that we could learn how to use links as extra jokes.
**PPS. This is extremely contingent on your wealth and race.
