Christmas toast

Our supper was late tonight, but in the middle of it, I raised my glass in a toast to my sisters.  Then I started thinking about families and Christmas Past.  I remembered the dinners at Lorraine's with the table stretching the length of the kitchen and then the length of the living room, with a "children's table" off to one side.  I remembered one Christmas when we visited a fellow Dad worked with, and then the party moved from house to house , enjoying the hospitality of most of the fellows he worked with, but not the McGraths.  I was very young but knew that Mom was furious, and we never did anything like that again.  There were Christmases that we visited Uncle Burt--not often, as alcohol flowed freely there.  Again, I think Mom put her foot down. I think she always had a fear of Dad drinking, as it had been such a problem in his family.  I don't remember "happy hour" being particularly happy in our house, but I do remember Mom and the sherry.  What a difference  when compared to the happy "happy hours" we saw when he was with Phyllis.  Overall, I think our best Christmases were the ones that involved Dad's family.  The Christmas I got married was a particularly weird/fun one, especially the day we made the sandwiches and drank all of the liquor that Dad had bought for the reception.
When my children were small, Christmas was small and quiet, unless we could get home.  But by that time, Mom was ill, and events were often organized quickly, at the last minute.  By the time we moved back to Winnipeg, you had both left.  Then there was the Christmas we visited Beth in Victoria. The trip down the Fraser Canyon,in a snow storm,  desperately trying to make the last ferry--and Don stopping to help fellow travelers.  The he got the speeding ticket and the police told him to make us share the cost of the ticket.   We made the ferry, though. Remember the cat getting up into the basement ceiling?  Then there was that licquere (sp?) you had brought from Europe, Beth, the one made with eggs.  All of you enjoyed it, but I thought it was gross.  I remember quietly sitting in a corner, in the middle of chaos, putting the last couple of stitches into a quilt, and being discovered by Phyllis, who seemed quite put out that I found time to be doing that.
Later, there were Christmas dinners at the house in Ft. Garry ( brain fart-can't remember the street).  One I remember had Phyllis talking about Christmas dinner and saying that overall she most enjoyed a traditional family meal, at home with family. Then she laughed, and pointed out that most of the people at her table she hadn't even  met two years previously.

And what did you two think about?