Where are you going to spend Christmas this year? continued

Posted by dodo

Even if you do take your own booze, you don’t want to appear a soak in front of your in-laws. ‘One year,’ said a friend, ‘we took up a crate of claret to my in-laws in Lancashire and, having polished it off, were asked to bury all the bottles in the garden, as my mother-in-law was so embarrassed by what the dustmen might think.’

On this subject I have never forgotten a hideously shameful occasion when my children were very young and my in-laws were staying. Having announced, sanctimoniously, and untruthfully, that I never drink at home at lunchtime, I then laced my orange juice with going to get me through the ordeal of grandparents’ and children’s lunch. My daughter, then aged two and a half, seized my glass, and, ‘thinking it was straight orange juice, took a great swig. She swiftly spat it out all over her grandmother and declared that she’d been poisoned, whereupon Granny took a tiny sip, and recognised gin. Read the rest of this entry »