Holiday Drinking Game

Who are those people with reindeer antlers on their car?  Where do they even get them?  I have never seen them anywhere in the pop-up ads on my news feeds or in stores, not even in the holiday section at Vons.  Don’t laugh, they had life-sized witches for $89.99 at Halloween and I contemplated tossing one in to my cart along with the six-pack of chardonnay.

Whether you are extra jolly or beyond stressed out this time of year, I can promise you, you are not alone.  We have reasons we are sad or worked up but, thankfully, plenty of reasons to be happy and rejoice.  Let’s not forget Saturday Night Live had more material this year than they knew what to do with.  May we all find the humor in Donald and Hillary.

I love the holidays:  a) blood oranges are in season, b) blood orange margaritas are my favorite and c) holiday parties, gift exchanges and long visits with family are a great excuse for a drinking game.   

Whether you are traveling or entertaining, raising the bar, or lowering it, your celebrations with friends or family or co-workers may need a little loosening up.  To get things rolling, try the Holiday Drinking Game.  Squeeze some blood oranges, or grab a bottle from your six-pack and sit your most stressed-out relative or friend down:

Drink if you know someone who has reindeer antlers on their car.

Drink again if it’s you.

Drink if you do Elf on the Shelf.

Drink again if it is a perverted elf.

Drink if you have given in the past, or are thinking of giving this year, a preteen Beats by Dr. Dre.

Drink again if they are wireless.

Drink if you bought the Trader Joe’s Advent calendar already.

Drink again if you ate some of it and had to buy another one.

Drink if you have adopted a family-in-need this holiday season.

Drink again if you have spent time or money on this family while your own family is overdue for any of the following:  haircut, dog wash, oil change, teeth cleaning, or mammogram.

Drink if you are traveling for the holidays.

Drink again if traveling by economy-class airplane.

Drink a third time if traveling for the holidays by economy-class airplane with a blood relative over the age of 85 or under the age of three.

If traveling for the holidays by economy-class airplane with a blood relative over the age of 85 or under the age of three through O’Hare, Dulles or Denver, drain the bottle.

Drink if you fill Xmas stockings for adults.

Drink again if you fill your own Xmas stocking.

Drink if you wrap any of the gifts for any of the stockings.

Drink again if you wrap all the gifts for all the stockings.

If you fill Xmas stockings for adults, and fill your own stocking and wrap all of the gifts for all of the stockings, see above.

Pro-Tip:  Drink a glass of water between each challenge.

Sending love and good cheer.  I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year.  Wish me luck!

It’s Yom Kippur Somewhere

I used to get dressed up and attend formal services for the High Holidays at our temple.  I love temples, I love rabbis,  I love most Jewish people, but about five years ago, I started staying home instead.  I can’t quiet my mind in a formal congregation.  I can’t stop thinking about how much my dress shoes are killing me and that I paid extra for that pain.  I can't stop thinking about the kids who take an inappropriate amount of Challah when we gather with everyone to say the motzi in the foyer of the temple.  And I definitely can't stop thinking about what to say to the man next to me who is the same man I cut off on the way into the parking lot.

The High Holy Days are about contemplation.  We are commanded to think about the year behind us, the year ahead of us.  Set goals.  Forgive ourselves.  Atone for our sins.  So the Professor and boys go without me, and I use the gift of quiet time to think and write, and sometimes cook, depending on who is hosting the holiday dinner. 

In between the two holiest days of the year, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (eleven days in between), we are commanded to reach out to people we have hurt or wronged and at least attempt to make things right.  I like to keep my accounts current so I am pretty busy all year long texting and calling people, quoting my therapist, trying really hard to not make excuses for my gross behavior, and hopefully, sincerely, squaring up with everyone along the way.  I believe I am up to date with all of you.  If not, you are invited to call me on my B.S., please. We have until sundown.

L'Chaim

PLEASE DO NOT SEND PACKAGES CONTAINING CANDY, FOOD OR GUM

Charming Baby is away for two weeks at an overnight mountain camp.  I am sure he is having the time of his life, but I wouldn’t know for sure because I haven’t received even so much as a postcard.  If I had a girl, I would have three newsy letters by now, complete with details like the names of all cabin mates and a hand-drawn diagram of the bunks and who sleeps where. 

I had originally presented the idea as a one-week trip, but the Professor talked me into two.  Not because he wanted to recreate the lazy BK (before kids) summers of our twenties with afternoon naps and entire days spent trolling around movie theaters, eating as much popcorn and Red Vines as we wished, but because he said it takes a week to get over homesickness and then you really start to have fun.

The Professor, like many east coast kids, grew up going to camp for six or eight-weeks every summer.   (He recalls six weeks, his brother recalls eight.  They both remember starting at age nine.)  When First Born Prince turned nine, the Professor asked about sending him.  You might as well have asked me if I would cut out my heart, throw it on the ground and do the Mexican hat dance on it.

When FBP turned 13, we tried a few of those three-day sports camps hosted at universities where the kids play their sport all day long and sleep in the college dorms and eat in the campus cafeterias.  I didn’t like the fact the kids had unlimited access to their electronic devices, pizza, Coca Cola and candy bars.  He adored the freedom, the long days of lacrosse and making new friends from all over.

Eventually we were turned on to a family-run weeklong lacrosse camp in the Adirondacks.  NO electronics, no candy, no staying up late playing Fooze-ball in the game room, high on partially hydrogenated oil and high-fructose corn syrup.  Just home-cooked meals, lacrosse in the morning, traditional mountain camp activities in the afternoon and enforced lights out.  Even though FBP liked the local university three-day benders better, the Professor and I felt the more traditional mountain camp experience was the way to go and so paved the way for his younger brother to try something similar.

I wasn’t sure about sending CB at age 11.  Yes, younger siblings mature faster but it surprised me that he agreed to two weeks.  Granted, he was going with one of his closest friends, but this is the kid who still refers to the day camp I sent him to when he was five as “Baby Jail.”  A mother’s guilt, fear and shame have no limits.

Thank God I watched the camp’s webinar Parents' Overview last spring.  They told us what to pack, how to pack (Label everything!  Involve the camper!).  The most depressing rule was that campers couldn’t receive food in care packages.  Not even gum.  The most helpful tip for me was about letter writing to our campers -- to just send news about what's going on at home and not dwell on how much we missed them.  I would have written “I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU SO MUCH!!!!  I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL YOU GET HOME!!!!”  I was forced to be a fake, Chatty Cathy.  I did sneak in a few xoxo's, but I was strong, I even signed off, "Love, Mom" instead of "Mama" which is what he calls me when he's feeling like my baby.  

Perhaps one of his experienced bunkmates is up there coaching him right now.  “Don’t write home, it will just make your mom cry.  Make her think you are having so much fun you forgot to write.”  Maybe that’s what he’s thinking and we can just tell each other the dirty, stinky, bug-bitten truth.  When he gets home.  To his mama.  Next Saturday.