“Merry Christmas” is how my family greeted each other this past Saturday. The family Christmas could only have been held this past weekend, as it was the first weekend the whole family could make it. 

It did earn me weird looks when I told people I was heading home to celebrate Easter and Christmas. I guess my family wanted to be efficient and celebrate the entire life of Christ in one weekend. 

The highlights of the Christmas party are the snacks and getting to see extended family that I wouldn’t get to see otherwise, but the main event is playing the dice game. 

The dice game has different rules and different names depending on the players, but I’ll explain how my family does it. 

We sit in a circle around a pile of presents, pass around two pie tins and roll a pair of dice in each. 

If a participant rolls doubles, they pick a present from the middle and open it. We continue until all presents have left the circle. We then pause to share the mystery gifts that we unwrapped.

Once everyone has shared, we begin passing around the pie tins again, but with two changes. This time, a timer is set for ten minutes and when someone rolls a double, they steal a gift from another person. This continues until time runs out. The rules are exactly the same every time. 

However, during our game this Saturday, there was a bit of chaos caused on my part that just about derailed the whole game. 

Before I get into that, I will provide a little bit of background information. There were two dogs at this party: a pitbull named Zoe and a cocker spaniel named Romey. 

Romey is an adorable little dog. He is fluffy with black and white fur and has a pair of heterochromic eyes, brown and blue. 

He is a little skittish and doesn’t pay attention to people unless they have food. I like him a lot because he reminds me so much of my late bichon, Rosie.

Poor Romey. If I hadn’t been watching him so closely, he could have slid the deli meat tray off the counter during lunchtime without anybody stopping him. 

During the timed portion of the game, tensions were high and people would do anything to distract one another, even going so far as to throw wadded pieces of tissue paper across the circle. 

One piece bounced off my grandma and rolled in front of Romey, who immediately chomped down before running off. 

I leapt to my feet and cornered him with my mother, who was able to pry the paper out of his mouth while I held his jaws apart. 

I went back to my seat but found that, in my haste, I had knocked over my friend’s margarita. There was already a huge stain on the floor and I felt terrible because this venue was rented out for the party. What if the stain never came out? 

I took handfuls of paper towels to mop up the mess while the game played on. Everyone kept passing the tins around the circle, almost passing over me a few times. 

It was hard to stay focused on scrubbing while the game was still going on, but especially when Romey started eating sardines next to me. We didn’t even have sardines on the snack table. 

Eventually, as a rare exception, they paused the game so I could finish cleaning. I later learned that the fish was an organic treat from Romey’s owner. 

I felt bad about knocking over my friend’s drink, but he said it was alright. To be honest, I think it smelled better on the carpet than it tasted. 

We finished the game, and I ended up with a neat mug with references to different movies on it. This game is one of my favorite family traditions and I hope we continue it for years to come.

Curtin can be reached at [email protected].