December, Scored
The family Christmas is a structured event in roughly the same way a car crash is a structured event—there’s a recognizable sequence, there are recurring elements, and by the end everyone is standing around trying to pretend the damage isn’t as extensive as it looks. What follows is a scoring system for the evening, offered in the spirit of sporting competition and personal survival.
The dog gets into the punch. This is almost always the first disaster, and the escalation is quick: ten minutes of suspicious quiet, then he’s crossing the good rug like he’s auditioning for something. The carpet that has survived four decades of family history will not survive this Christmas intact. Two hundred points if you let it happen on purpose. Minus five hundred if you wake up the next morning in the bathtub, naked, with him asleep on your chest. That scenario requires no further comment.
At some point in the evening your cousin walks in and you realize you’ve lost track of how much time has passed since you last saw each other, because the person standing in the doorway is definitively not the person you remember from last Easter. The Christmas tree arrangement in your trousers begins competing architecturally with the one in the living room. Four hundred points if it turns out you’re not actually blood relatives and you find a quiet corner of the attic together. Minus two hundred if you genuinely don’t care either way. I’m not judging. Well—slightly judging.
Uncle Ludwig is drunk before he arrives. He is always drunk before he arrives. He relieves himself somewhere during the gift exchange—the potato salad, traditionally—and then attempts to grope whoever is nearest as a form of thanks for the ten-euro department store voucher he brought. Five hundred points if you get him up onto the roof before nine and he stays there for the evening. Minus three hundred if he intercepts your cousin before you do.
Your little brother has received a PlayStation 3. You have received socks—handmade, from your grandmother, which is objectively worse than receiving nothing because you have to perform gratitude. He ignores the console entirely and plays with the cardboard box. The appropriate response is to seal him inside it, affix adequate postage, and arrange air freight to a distant location. Two hundred and fifty points if this succeeds. Minus four hundred if he returns from wherever as a wealthy entrepreneur, because that outcome is simply too annoying to reward.
Your grandmother, by the time the candles are lit, has already had an accident she hasn’t noticed. She’s simply too happy—everyone together, the duck in the oven, the snow coming down outside. The practical application of this situation in the event of the aforementioned Christmas tree catching fire is, points-wise, a genuinely elegant solution. I’ll leave the arithmetic to you.
By my estimates there is no realistic path to a positive final score. The house is on fire, the dog is horizontal, your uncle is on the roof, and you’re in a morally complicated situation in the attic. The only viable move from here is to get drunk enough that the entire evening starts to feel like an adventure, with bonus points if you’ve previously managed to harness the neighbor’s cats into a functional reindeer sled. Minus five hundred if you’re face-down in the toilet at the end of it. Merry Christmas. May the best chaos win.