I don’t know about you, but I’m not the most creative when it comes to making crafts. So I was pretty impressed when I came across a post from Bottlenotes titled “Eat, Drink And Make Decorations.”

With Hanukkah and Christmas only weeks ago, it’s time to start saving the corks and the bottles. Break out the glue gun and then follow their instructions. Before you know it, you’ll “be able to turn these wine recyclables into menorahs, wreaths, and place holders for your holiday dinner tables.”

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By Leah Odze Epstein

Every year, I look forward to celebrating Swedish Christmas with my extended family. We’ve been celebrating with the same family friends for years, and each year we alternate homes.

At both houses, the night before Christmas, we have an elaborate, multi-course meal, and this is how it goes: First comes the cheese and herring course. My favorite part is the Wasa bread crackers topped with a thin slice of Vasterboten cheese and a few dilled cucumber slices soaked in white vinegar. I also love the hard-boiled eggs, but I take the squeeze caviar off the top. Then comes the piece-de-resistance: the meatballs with lingonberry sauce, the salami with mustard, the potatoes with sour cream and the stuffed cabbage, caramelized with molasses. Following that, the hostess brings out Swedish ham, a  casserole called Jansson’s frestelse, which I loved until I found out it contained anchovies along with the potatoes and cream, and spare ribs. If you’re not too stuffed after that, there’s dessert—pepparkakor (gingersnaps), Cardamom cake, coconut macaroons, Swedish style, and assorted cookies, plus coffee and tea.

And then we open presents.

There are benefits to being at each house, but at our friend’s house, I look forward to hearing the Jackson Five Christmas album every year (now a CD—that’s how long we’ve been doing this). My husband and sister? They look forward to the Aquavit.

Did I forget to mention the Aquavit? In between bites, little shot glasses of the chilled liquor are served, and everyone who partakes raises his or her glass and says, “Ja, skal,” which basically means “Yes, I toast you,” (Or yes, I’m toasted) as far as I can make out.

In case you don’t know, Aquavit is alcohol distilled either from grain or potatoes. It is usually flavored with caraway seeds, and can taste like rye bread, but it can also come flavored with anise, coriander, dill, fennel or paradise (pungent and peppery).

Here’s the weird thing: I’ve never tasted it.

Granted, it’s generally only on the table at our friend’s house, though sometimes they smuggle a bottle into my parent’s house. Since my mom stopped drinking back in the 70s, we haven’t had much liquor in our house. It makes my mom uncomfortable.

My husband took to the ja-skal-ing right away, joining in with gusto, clinking glasses with my sister and our family friends while I looked on, slightly envious. It’s not that I don’t like Aquavit—it’s never even crossed my lips.

So why don’t I partake? I honestly can’t say for sure, but I think it has something to do with being the daughter of an alcoholic, and being THE ONE IN CONTROL. Each person in a family plays a role, and mine has always been (at least in my eyes) to be the one who keeps it together. The Good One. The Temperate One.

Multiple shots of Aquavit can make you silly. Giddy. Out of control.

Multiple shots of Aquavit look kind of fun.

I’m thinking maybe this will be the year I try Aquavit, the year I whisper in my own ear—“It’s okay to ease up, just a little bit.” The roles we play are self-imposed. No one ever told me not to drink the Aquavit. I made that arbitrary rule myself.

“Ja, skal!”

Leah Odze Epstein is the co-editor of Drinking Diaries and writes fiction for young adults and tweens.

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By Deirdre Sinnott

Much like the Mickey Mouse Club, I too had my “Anything Can Happen” days. When I was drinking, Mickey might not have made an appearance, but other rodents did.

One of my messiest nights began at Macy’s. It was just before Christmas. Mary, a friend from a theater group I worked with, and I sweated on a long line waiting to buy a pepper grinder. This was the first simple, hand-cranking pepper mill I’d found after searching in various stores.

Mary was due to sing at the Fulton Fish Market in Manhattan. Each year the businesses at the Market set up bleachers made to resemble an isosceles triangle. Choral singers wearing green and red holiday outfits crowded the steps and formed a living, singing, Christmas tree. Mary pulled away from the checkout line. “I’ve got to go or I’ll be late. You don’t want to see some naked cherub dangling off the tree do you?”

We made plans to meet after she was done singing, but once I finally purchased my pepper mill I didn’t want to go directly downtown.

Soon enough, I was elbows on a bar, drinking a shot of scotch with a beer chaser. It was the first of the evening and as the burning liquid raced down my throat, I felt like the night had endless possibilities. I agreed with the bartender that one set deserved a companion and slammed down another two drinks. Soon my Macy’s bag and I were headed downtown.

Once at the Fulton Fish Market, I followed the sounds of the chorus until I stood before the display. It was glorious. Mary was near the top, properly dressed in a pointed green felt hat, red collar, and elf-like green jacket, exactly like the rest of the singers. There was an outdoor café and I squeezed my way up to the bar, turning sideways so that I could fit between the white guys in suits that dominated the scene. I put my Macy’s bag on the bar, ordered a new shot and beer combo, and watched the tree vibrate with holiday spirit.

“Fun isn’t it?” asked one of the suits. As I sipped my scotch, I assessed him. He was sort of chubby with an unruly lock of hair that skittered around his forehead in the breeze coming off the bay. He looked like a boy dressed up for church by his mother.

“It’s not exactly my type of music,” I said. “I’m more partial to Blues than caroling.”

“You know a place?” he asked. I nodded and pitched my drink into my mouth, swallowing hard. I was ready to go. Mary was totally forgotten, secondary to an impulsive adventure. My Macy’s bag was almost forgotten too, only rescued by the quick-thinking bartender. Moments later we were in a cab heading to Dan Lynch’s on Second Avenue and Fourteenth Street.

At Dan Lynch’s I continued to indulge, putting down more drinks. When I stepped away from my stool and walked into the gloom to go the toilet, I realized that perhaps I had drunk too much. In the women’s room mirror, my pale reflection glowed blue from the fluorescent lights. I looked like the exhausted ghost of Christmas-yet-to-be.

When I got back to the bar, my suited companion was gone. “Is he in the bathroom?” I asked the bartender.

“Went the other way,” he replied, nodding toward the door. A large African-American man leaned against a barstool, surveying the action inside and giving the once-over to any new customers.

I asked him if he had seen my suit leave. He nodded. “Got into a cab,” he said.

Here is where it gets a little dicey. I can’t quite remember what I did next. I do remember the bouncer hugging me and, since I had been so unceremoniously dumped, asking me if I needed a little company. Apparently, with total willingness, I went downstairs into the office for sex. I remember a blowup mattress, already fully inflated, being thrown down on the floor. I remember, as I lay on my back hugging his solid body with my legs, seeing cases of beer and hard liquor ringing the mattress. I remember the smell of stale ale and the scratching noises of mice scurrying around the periphery. I remember begging the man on top of me not to come inside of me.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the subway traveling back to Astoria, Queens where I lived. I looked in my lap and saw the Macy’s bag. When I peeked into the box, my pepper mill was gone. I threw the bag onto the floor, much to the disgust of another passenger who loudly complained.

How could I explain myself? I opened my mouth to try, but couldn’t. Instead I sobbed.

This essay is a follow-up to Deirdre Sinnott’s well received Video Tour of a Few NYC Bars, a short, sassy “tour de glass” of her old drinking haunts. Deirdre’s work has appeared in the special nonfiction issue of the literary magazine Cadillac Cicatrix and she is a regular book reviewer for ForeWord Magazine. Her writing appears in Catskill Review of Books, World View Forum, Blue Collar Holler, Della Donna Webzine, and in two anthologies. Much more information and other stories can be found on her website www.DeirdreSinnott.com.