The holidays are supposed to be the season to appreciate family and spend some quality time catching grandpa up on your excellent study habits at school, telling your aunt that you still don’t have a boyfriend, stuffing your face with food after a semester of frozen pizzas, and reminiscing on holidays past. But when your past family celebrations do not bring a smile to the people surrounding you at the dining room table, it can be disastrous.

This was the situation I faced in my own family last year, or, as I like to refer to it in my head, the tequila disaster of Christmas 2010.

My cousin had just gotten back from a trip to Mexico, and brought back some authentic tequila that he wanted to share with the group. Although my aunt disapproved, shots were poured early in the evening over appetizers for everybody from my grandpa to my dad to the of-age cousins.

Things seemed fine, until dinner when my grandpa started joking to my cousin about his weight. Ten minutes later, my grandpa was putting on his coat and heading out the door, adding some drama by saying that if the family hated him, he would just leave.

My cousin was up in his room, crying, and the rest of us were sitting around the dining room table with a full plate of food in front of us, wondering what we should do or say.

My mom’s face said “don’t say anything.” Dinner was uncomfortably quiet, and second helpings were not encouraged.

About an hour later, after the dishes had been cleared, the air in the room seemed calm, but the real storm was about to hit. During the presents my dad and my aunt got into a huge argument over sororities, I’m still unsure how this even came about.

My aunt defended her choice to “Go Greek,” while my father argued they are a waste of money (sorry, Dad). I just sat there in awe of their conversation.

Then I turned around, and my cousin was accusing his fiancé of not pushing herself to find a better job. Why he chose Christmas of all days to discuss this, I will never know. Needless to say, the celebrations were over shortly after dessert finally hit the table.

I can mark December 25, 2010 as the day tequila was officially banned from all family parties.

Maura Manning, junior in social work, has also had her share of holidays gone wrong. Although Manning was still young at the time, her family story was so unreal that it has been retold many times.

“My dad and my uncle were both carving our turkey, and my uncle, as a joke, touched my dad a little with the knife and so in retaliation my dad did the same to my uncle,” Manning said.

What happened next on that notorious evening, nobody could have prepared for.

“He actually hit a big vein and blood started going everywhere and so they had to make a tourniquet,” she said. “My grandparents were in the basement, and they had no idea any of this was going on.”

They ended up having to take Manning’s uncle to the emergency room.

“They came back two hours later and my grandparents still had no idea that my uncle had to get stitches,” she said.

Thankfully, the accident is now used as a joke at Manning’s family gatherings.

“It was an accident but it sounds so vicious like ‘oh yeah remember when Uncle Don accidentally cut Uncle Jimmy and he had to go to the hospital,’” she said. “It just sounds so much worse than it actually is.”

Kyle Krueger, junior in Business, also knows about crazy uncles.

“When I was seven years old, we all went to my grandpa’s house, and we were opening up all sorts of presents that we got,” he said. “My uncle tried to play a trick on my cousin PJ who was a junior in college, and he got him a bunch of lottery scratch off tickets.”

Sounds pretty harmless so far, but one of those tickets was a fake.

“My cousin PJ scratched it off and it said that he won like $50,000,” he said. “And it was all recorded by my uncle and my cousin is jumping up and down all happy and was saying he can pay for college.”

Krueger’s cousin could not have predicted what would happen next.

“Then my uncle told him to read the back, and it said to bring this card to the North Pole so Santa could approve,” he said.

Although Krueger’s cousin was clearly upset, he recovered eventually, and the family is able to joke about it today.

“It was a cruel joke but it was a funny joke because he laughed in the end,” Krueger said.

With last year’s Christmas details now replaying vividly in my mind, the only question is, is it too soon to make a joke about it at this upcoming Christmas?

_Kelly is a junior in LAS._