Christmas at the Centennial

As a construction, the "Centennial" is a glorious thing. As defined by Webster, a Centennial is a momentous celebration, the anniversary of some event that took place one hundred years before. Though inevitably everyone who was present at the original event is now dead, the modern participants in the Centennial are united in the common (albeit hazy) conviction that the original event was important; so important, in fact, that it deserves to be not only remembered, but lauded with great fervor. Centennials herald a century of work, growth, and progress, one hundred years of love, life, and the metric system, which grants special credence to numbers like "100." And what could be better than a Centennial Christmas? A Christmas at the Centennial offers the perfect union of holiday tradition and long-standing legacy, a way to recognize where we came from as it informs where we stand today.

Which, if you were me on Christmas Eve, was at the liquor store.



I've never experienced anything quite like Christmas at the Centennial. For one thing, at 6 pm on Christmas Eve, everything is sparsely populated at best, totally desolate at worst. The grocery store was a dead zone, Jamba Juice was eerily devoid of uniformed private school kids, and even the yuppies at Whole Foods were showing signs of slowing down. The Centennial, on the other hand, was packed. Two policemen were stationed outside, directing traffic in the parking lot. Is it just the volume they're monitoring? I wondered. Or are they afraid some crazed Centennial shopper won't be able to keep himself from ripping the cork out of his merry before he's left the parking lot?

Inside the Centennial, the crowd was intense. People liquor-browsed and debated with one another over what to buy. Jack or Wild Turkey? Kahlua or Godiva White Chocolate liquer? Bud, Bud Lite, a beer that spells "light" correctly, or a 6-pack of Coors Lt bottles that cleverly mask the shitbeer by turning blue? But wait — doesn't Michelob ULTRA [sic] have less calories? Decisions, decisions.

If you listened closely enough, you could practically hear the unasked questions that shaped the lively in-store buzz. What liquor's best for spiking eggnog? Is spiced rum a good holiday choice? Could Jager and Absinthe be mixed as a festive layer shot? And the most potent question, one that hung in the air forming a sort of underlying current that united all the Centennial shoppers in a common goal: What is the most potent liquor that will allow me to deal with all my extended family on Christmas without them knowing that I've had to resort to liquor to deal with them?

When I approached the checkout counter with my bottle of wine, someone had just broken a bottle of something else, and the pungent smell of tequila wafted through the air. A haggard employee attempted to mop it up, merely spreading the sickeningly sweet perfume throughout the store. Who needs Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh? Give them to Jesus: I’ll take my Jose Cuervo, please. No lime or salt required — just a rag to mop it off the floor, and a shot glass to ring the rag into. There’s the real way to ring in the holiday season. That's how we do things in Texas.

Once I left the store, I waved jollily to the policeman, waltzed across the parking lot to my car, stowed my wine, and went right back inside the Centennial.

This time I decided to go for a bit of Irish cream. However, always the penny-pincher, I selected a bottle of Saint Brendan’s, the knockoff version of Bailey’s for cheap bastards. For four dollars less, you get a seductively shaped bottle and stuff that tastes more or less the same. I continued to call it Bailey’s throughout the evening, which is akin to buying the knockoff brand of facial tissues and proceeding to call them “Kleenex.” Who doesn’t do it? And who the hell’s heard of Saint Brendan anyway? More important: did Saint Brendan — whoever he was — ever imagine that his sainthood would be remembered solely in conjunction with a liquor that people buy when they really wish they were buying Bailey’s but don’t want to spend the extra four bucks? To add insult to injury, he doesn’t even get remembered at all when people like me go around claiming to be drinking Bailey’s. Poor saintly soul.

For my second alcoholic purchase of the evening, I used a different checkout counter. I didn’t want people getting ideas. And since I’d be going to a party where lugging a bottle of Saint Brendan’s around all night might make me conspicuous, I asked for a flask.

“Them plastic one's all we got,” the man said, pointing to a stack of what looked like misshapen potatoes posing as plastic pill bottles.

I took one. After all, it's the holidays, and my garter was lonely.

Oh, Brendan the Bold. How you’ve carried me to the Isle of the Blessed.

Nothing like Christmas at the Centennial to raise one’s spirits.