A Dubs Family Christmas

Christmas this year was quite the treat. I won't say much about Christmas eve, as I have described our family's rituals in detail already. It was quite enjoyable (roast beast, gifts, fire, etc.). Christmas day, however, was one of the more surreal holiday experiences of my life.

In St. Louis, my father has no relatives. My mother, on the other hand, has enough relatives to populate a small nation, and every holiday these relatives all converge upon some hapless sucker's home to celebrate the holiday with feasting and drinking. (Emphasis on the drinking. These people are of Polish-Irish descent, and they know how to have a good time.) Some highlights of this year's event include:

-Mistiming the turkeys on the grill, so that dinner was two hours late.
-Setting said turkeys on fire, unbeknownst to any of the partygoers, except...
-My father putting said turkey-fireballs out with his beer.
-The giant $10 jug of Carlo-Rossi.
-Filling the drinking chalice (giant glass bowl) with said Carlo-Rossi and passing it around the table, forcing people to chug whilst the others sang the Mexican Hat Dance song.
-Forcing my cousin's new boyfriend to chug twice, as he was "the new guy."
-Draining the chalice twice on my own to defend the honor of my scion of the family line.
-Celebrating another cousin's 16th birthday party with 22 candles on the cake.
-Sending other cousins out to buy a bottle of Bailey's, only to have them return instead with a bottle of Jagermeister.
-Watching the tivo'd porn in between plays of the football game with my cousin standing guard over the stairs to make sure his young children did not stumble in.
-The slightly uncomfortable period where my brother explained the plot of the porn to me, while his girlfriend helped fill in details (they apparently had seen it before).
-The very surreal experience of eating mashed potatoes, stuffing, and ham (as noted, the turkey was late).

All in all, one of our more enjoyable Christmases. We left at the appropriate time (before the music started to blast for two hours), and I managed not to get drunk, opting instead for "kinda sick" due, no doubt, to the aforementioned chugging of Carlo-Rossi.

Saturday I return to Madison, and not a moment too soon. I adore my parents and enjoy spending time with them, but my God, I need to leave this house before I murder them in their sleep. I believe my mother has brought up no less than 30 times the fact that some day I'll be able to have these fun family experiences with my own children, and I have been told by at least four of my relatives that I need to "find some nice girl and settle down somewhere."

To rectify this tension and questioning of my life choices, I've decided to have wacky Madison fun on New Year's Eve. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm open to suggestions. Whatever it is, it has to top last year's sword brandy (which won't be hard, except in terms of sheer absurdity). So Madison folk, I take it upon you to come up with hilarity and debauchery to ring in 2007. Keep me posted.