Wine lickers

As the New Year approaches and my kids being older now are getting ready to scatter to there friends and extended families to celebrate. I am not a party type so a glass a wine with a solute and I am good to go. At 60 life does not have so much excitement at every corner. Putting my feet up with a glass of wine or just picking up a book sets me on fire.  I have tried to make the holidays fun for the kids but now they have made friends and some are going to college so I now feel like I can take a break from them.  We all come from different backgrounds and different languages, I can not make them into replicas of me nor can I make them American in the sense we all think living in America is all about. I can introduce them to every aspect of our culture but they will never be a cultural American.  All the government and legal documents in the world can not do that for them. They will forever be a mix. I do not live a life of what folks may call normal. I have no idea what normal is, I just do what I need to do, try to make the best of what I have and am.  I have morals and I live what I teach. Now morals are not a set of angel wings, It just mean I practice what I teach my kids and live my life how I want to be treated; I respect and want to be respected. 
I took on the responsibility of the kids and dogs so I do not take this lightly; I know that I personally do not care if my kids have a drink of wine on special occasions but my responsibility is to not let them drink at all till they are 21. They hound me to the ends of the earth to just have a taste of my wine because it smells so good.  I always say no and on those special time I buy bubbly juices and put it in a wine glass and they are content with that. One of the girls will turn 21 this spring but in her mind that time starts on the second half of 20.
Last night I thought it would be our last night together of 2012 so we should go out to eat. The 20 year old works till 9 or 9:30 depending on how long it takes to clean up after the last customer. She is unaware of what we are doing and did not plan for her 9 PM departure. It was painfully apparent that she was not leaving then and she did not want us to wait for her. I must add she knows I have no patience to wait and so she will always say, "don't wait for me".  I told her we would be at the restaurant across the street she should walk over there and meet us. We will have a drink while we wait for you. Now the kids like all those fancy sweet syrup drinks they tell you it is some flavor of lemonade. They just want sweet anything to drink but restaurants do not serve cool aide, so I am stuck buying the 4$ a glass of syrup water for them. I ordered a glass of wine for myself and we settled in to our bought of silly chatter and waited for the other girl. She arrives just as the drinks arrive and wants to know what we are all drinking. One of the girls tells her to get a different flavor than she ordered and they could try each others drink. Now this is when thing start to run amok as the drink tasting starts, one the girls picks of my glass of wine and puts it to her mouth and says can I have a sip? My reaction is put that down before they see you with it and we are ask to leave.  She then starts to lick the glass, to my surprise, I grabbed the glass and my first words are " What the Hell are you doing"? The other girls start laughing. Then she tells me she like the wine I drink at home better. What! Have you been drinking my wine? No I just lick the top.  Now what does one say to that ..... nothing we just all laughed and got silly. 
Happy New Years to all, may you find laughter in everything, and 2013 brings health and happiness to everyone.