A Festive Kind
of Drunk
by Lily Murphy
Christmas! It’s
that time of year when you are given a license to
eat and drink all around you. A time of year for
jolly get-togethers where excessive amounts of
turkey and mince pies are washed down with an
equally excessive amount of booze.
Over the years
I have avoided falling drunkenly into the
Christmas tree but others have not been so lucky!
For many years
it was a guarantee that my father would fall
victim to tripping into the Christmas tree. One
year my mother decided to combat this infliction
which harassed my father every December and she
erected an electric fence around the tree. It
worked so well that she erected another electric
fence around the drinks cabinet!
One year,
myself and my friend found ourselves in the
company of 3 friends from Dublin who arrived in
our town in search of some festive merriment. I
took them on a tour of some bars where we toasted
Santa and all of his reindeers. By closing time
we had our fill of festive cheer and I was
guiding them back to my place to wind down with
some mulled punch. We had been out all night and
the dawn was upon us as we trudged along up the
street and the moon was still in the sky but my
friend suggested it was the sun.
‘It’s
not the sun, it’s the moon!’ I informed
her.
‘How can
it be the moon, sure it’s now morning! I’m
telling you it’s the sun!’
So this
argument went on and on until I turned to my
three companions from Dublin and I asked them,
‘can you settle a dispute here and tell us
if that’s the sun or the moon up there?’
One of them
shook his head with a confused expression etched
across his inebriated face, ‘I’m sorry
I wouldn’t know, I’m not from around
here!’
Well I now
understand why Jesus wasn’t born in Dublin,
they couldn’t find any three wise men there!
Pets can also
cause havoc during the festive period. One
Christmas Eve while my parents were entertaining
some neighbours in the sitting room with mulled
wine and wild whiskey, they failed to notice the
dog sneak into the kitchen and attack the turkey
that was sitting near the sink defrosting,
waiting on death row for its final trip to the
oven the following day. The dog made off with the
bird and had a jolly good time with it out in the
snow blanketed garden. But it could have been
worse, he could have broken through the electric
fence which guarded the drinks cabinet!
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