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Shrimp Cocktail and Christmas Eve Chaos: to Laugh or Not to Laugh
I’m quite sure that a few of Julie Andrews’ favorite things at Christmas time do not include some of the memories I have, like melted plastic holiday tablecloths and the crunch of shrimp shells.
When I recounted the memory of polishing my harness boots on Christmas Eve, I mentioned two neighbor ladies who were coming over, sisters, both as old as my parents. Joyce and Edna lived with their mother — Grandma K. we called her — across the sidewalk in the apartment building facing ours. Neither of them had ever married, and all three treated my sister and I as family. We had known them very soon after we moved in — about ten years at this point — and they came over for a bit every Christmas Eve. Their visit actually had spurred the spreading of the decorative plastic tablecloth I had unceremoniously but accidentally melted a little earlier.
By the time the sisters arrived, my mom and dad had made a full recovery from the debacle of the Christmas tablecloth. That was a minor setback because I’m pretty sure those cloths came like three for a dollar. They were the only types I ever saw on our table the three or four times a year we actually ate there.
My parents had their own way of recovering from the numerous knuckle balls life seemed to throw at them: they drank. I didn’t like it, but I…
