Ah, the holidays. 'Tis a time for communing with family, for eating ourselves silly (uh, huh, like we didn't do that last night), and for talking with each other. Occasionally, it is also true confessions time.

Like, for instance, tonight.

Somehow, the conversations came around to alcohol consumption, because my aunt described a recent episode involving my cousin and hard liquor. It then led to analyses of our drinking histories - mine, my aunt's and my mom's. I learned from my mom that my great-grandmother didn't mind having a little of the hard stuff in her later years, but she ended up tying on a few too many at a country club with her former buddies in the nursing profession and she had to call my granddaddy to get her home in one piece. My mother's mother was so mad and so mortified.

Then my aunt went into her teenage years, when a friendly gathering got out of hand while my grandparents were away one summer, giving my grandmother (my father's and my aunt's mother) her hands-over-her-ears-I'm-not-listening-la-la-la-la-laaaaa moment, but then an admission on her part that her generation would really whoop it up with the drinks at various parties and social occasions.

My big confession? That I drank myself silly with my friends and bridesmaids the night before my own wedding.

"So that's why you forgot your marriage license on the wedding day!" my mother said.

"No, I just forgot it. I was real lucky I only lived two blocks away from the synagogue, " I said.

Oh, I have waaay more that I could tell concerning drinking exploits. But I think I'll save those for another family gathering.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!