Saturday, December 25, 2004
Merry Christmas from Alabama, Y'all
There is a popular country song out right now by Gretchen Wilson called "Redneck Woman,"which I have thought about several times this past week. You see, I have recently returned from the Alabama Christmas Tour, aka visiting my extended family in their native dwellings. I love these yearly visits, because my relations are good people and I enjoy them, not least because they make watching Blue Collar Comedy more fun.
We spent most of our time with my family in the country, and when I say "in the country", I mean po-dunk, rural, backwoods country. When I am a politician, I will not talk about my daddy from the mill, I will talk about my daddy running barefoot through the back woods of Alabama. (Reference for the Dixie Bitches: this spot is located on 231 between Montgomery and Troy. Yeah.) Caveat: My family members are very smart. Thus, while they embody much of the classic redneck stereotype, they are not white trash by any stretch of the imagination. This is an imporant difference.
Gretchen tells us that (among other things) she prefers beer over champagne because she's just a product of her raising. We didn't drink much beer this year, as "hooch" was more preferable. Sometimes, we have to pour our whiskey out of old anti-freeze bottles because that's how my trucker uncle smuggles it in from Mexico. But this year, we had our choice of Crown Royal and JD from the original bottles, as well as a gallon of Bacardi Rum. We darn near finished all three bottles, but I think the reason we didn't is that there were too many people in the kitchen when you needed a refill. Also, the yearly Scrabble game was approaching, and it's bad to be too drunk to make proper words. Don't mess with the Scrabble game.
At the Dirty Santa game (when your family starts to number above 30, it's time to stop buying individual presents), no fewer than 3 knife sets were unwrapped. I myself ended up with a 44 piece kitchen set that included a variety of knives, but my 8 year old first-cousin-once-removed was delighted to open a hunting knife set. Sadly, she would not end up with it because her brother, 6, was determined to steal it from her (he was later disuaded from this by being instructed to open a bio-dome science kit). Their mother, my cousin (it's important to keep these relationships straight) ended up stealing it, as no one wanted to make an 8 year old girl cry by stealing her knives.
Last year, one of my cousins brought his new wife into the fray. He is 8 days older than I am, and he decided that working in the Fruit-of-the-Loom factory was more fun that more book-learning. Thus, as he is technically older and he skipped college, so I didn't feel weird that he married before I did. Nor did I begrudge him his 11 month old son this year. But when my cousin who is a Junior at U of Florida brought his girlfriend of a year to the family, that did make me feel funny. This might have also been because I tend to date Yankee boys, and mentally sticking any one of them in that mix makes me giggle. The first time I bring someone home, I might have to pay someone to follow him around with a video camera.
All in all, it was a great trip.
Merry Christmas.
We spent most of our time with my family in the country, and when I say "in the country", I mean po-dunk, rural, backwoods country. When I am a politician, I will not talk about my daddy from the mill, I will talk about my daddy running barefoot through the back woods of Alabama. (Reference for the Dixie Bitches: this spot is located on 231 between Montgomery and Troy. Yeah.) Caveat: My family members are very smart. Thus, while they embody much of the classic redneck stereotype, they are not white trash by any stretch of the imagination. This is an imporant difference.
Gretchen tells us that (among other things) she prefers beer over champagne because she's just a product of her raising. We didn't drink much beer this year, as "hooch" was more preferable. Sometimes, we have to pour our whiskey out of old anti-freeze bottles because that's how my trucker uncle smuggles it in from Mexico. But this year, we had our choice of Crown Royal and JD from the original bottles, as well as a gallon of Bacardi Rum. We darn near finished all three bottles, but I think the reason we didn't is that there were too many people in the kitchen when you needed a refill. Also, the yearly Scrabble game was approaching, and it's bad to be too drunk to make proper words. Don't mess with the Scrabble game.
At the Dirty Santa game (when your family starts to number above 30, it's time to stop buying individual presents), no fewer than 3 knife sets were unwrapped. I myself ended up with a 44 piece kitchen set that included a variety of knives, but my 8 year old first-cousin-once-removed was delighted to open a hunting knife set. Sadly, she would not end up with it because her brother, 6, was determined to steal it from her (he was later disuaded from this by being instructed to open a bio-dome science kit). Their mother, my cousin (it's important to keep these relationships straight) ended up stealing it, as no one wanted to make an 8 year old girl cry by stealing her knives.
Last year, one of my cousins brought his new wife into the fray. He is 8 days older than I am, and he decided that working in the Fruit-of-the-Loom factory was more fun that more book-learning. Thus, as he is technically older and he skipped college, so I didn't feel weird that he married before I did. Nor did I begrudge him his 11 month old son this year. But when my cousin who is a Junior at U of Florida brought his girlfriend of a year to the family, that did make me feel funny. This might have also been because I tend to date Yankee boys, and mentally sticking any one of them in that mix makes me giggle. The first time I bring someone home, I might have to pay someone to follow him around with a video camera.
All in all, it was a great trip.
Merry Christmas.
