A Very Harrison Christmas

I have to be careful when telling any of the Harrison stories over the years. A lot of the stories typical involve the phrase "alcohol was involved," and the purpose of this particular story dances around the alcohol part of the story and it focuses on a child.

Every year, the family gathers at Donald and Edith's house for the celebration. We're talking 50 to 60 people, not counting Santa, at the current gatherings. It's a wide age span from the oldest to the youngest of the sixteen cousins in our family. I am the third oldest cousin and Alise is the youngest. In fact, she just turned twenty-one last month.

One particular Christmas, many, many years ago, my sister, Stacy, showed up with a rattlesnake kit. Just for those outside of Louisville, a rattlesnake here is not the same drink in Ohio (or anywhere else it seems.)

Stacy started making them for my aunts who started shooting them. Soon they were doing this with their hands behind their back and picking up a shot class with just their mouth and throwing them back. This particular way of drinking shots is cleverly called a blow job.

My cousin Alise was three years old at the time and watched this as it occurred. She decided, at the age of three, she wanted to imitate them, but she didn't have a drink, so she went under the sink and got her bubbles. You know bubbles, they are outdoor bubbles with the little ring that kids dip in the soap and blow through to get bubbles to come out.

She did a couple shots, picking it up with just her mouth and swigging the soap back with her hands behind her back, just like her aunts. Someone saw this, it might have been me actually, and took the bubbles away. Realizing it was soap made me gag.

Hell, I am gagging as I type this.

At that point, Edith or myself picked her up and held her over the sink giving her water as we were unsure of whether she drank any.

Watching her do the blow job style of drinking shots though, I'm pretty sure there's a Mastercard commercial in there somewhere with the tagline "Priceless."

Then she threw up bubbles. Everywhere.

She was foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

Now that I think about it, I wasn't holding her because I can't handle vomit. Every time I think about holding up a friend from high school or college as they threw up, I feel a little sick.

She got sick a couple times in the sink and that marked the end of the aunts drinking shots like that in front of Alise. I can only assume she never drank bubbles again after that. I can't imagine she even wanted to play with them again.

And rattlesnake kits have been banned from the Harrison Christmas party since.