Hot Sauce and Aspirin

We all made it! Great work, everyone! It’s Sunday, familial landmines have hopefully been avoided, everyone is beating hasty retreats back to their homes, cities, or states. If you hosted the holidays, congratulations on a quiet house, that probably stayed pretty clean all weekend, because you had the stress of unexpected pop ins all weekend. If you traveled for the holiday, you are probably home or en route now, about to sink into your couch or bed, and deeply breathe that sigh of relief. You did it. You made it! I’m so proud of you! I love my family, and we host thanksgiving every year for 18-25 people. I honestly enjoy seeing everyone, hearing the cacophony of voices, seeing the flow of alcohol and gravy, providing a home and gathering place for 3 generations of family and friends. But sparkling and shining for 4-5 days takes a toll! The Sunday after Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year after my birthday. I relish the quiet. There is so much joy that comes from knowing the next knock on the door will be a political canvasser getting ready for the runoffs, or a window salesman. Someone I can ignore if I want!

This is not a typical hangover blog, because today I’m suffering from a social hangover more than an alcohol related one. And the best cure is quietly cocooning in my bed until the hunger drives me out. My husband knows that post Thanksgiving Sunday is sacred and vital to everyone’s survival. I recharge, alone, and he, who doesn’t seem to get the drainage that comes from being on for 4 days straight, spends the day on the couch with the dogs, who usually also spend the day sleeping and recharging. Sometimes I don’t even turn the TV on for hours, instead choosing to sit in silence.

Of course, 4-5 days of entertaining while the booze and gravy flows, means, a lot of those booze are flowing into me. So here’s what I do for the long game!

Wednesday my mom arrived, with her husband and adorable tiny dog, and a seemingly endless supply of wine. She’s the main popper over. Showing up as soon as I wake up, or walk in the door from running errands, or step into the shower. It’s like she has a tracker on me and picks times just to mess with me. She’s also incredibly sensitive, so even though the timing of her arrival is always the absolute least convenient moment, she has to be greeted enthusiastically. The fact she shows up with an endless supply of wine helps soften the blow of being dripping wet, or sound asleep, or also in the driveway, having just arrived home. How relatable is this post? Anyway, Wednesday…my mom and company arrived, and I had been anticipating it, so earlier in the day I went out and had a drink with a new friend, then had another drink with said friend at my house. Then convinced a different friend to come over and have a drink or 2. Eventually my husband came home and we had a drink. So before the arrival, I was 5 deep. After the arrival and subsequent departure (of which I remember very little) I was around 9 deep. Thankfully it was also only 9 o’clock. (That’s the trick for thanksgiving week, stop early.) I woke up on Thanksgiving, feeling tired and a little queasy, but totally able to rally. WAY back, in one of my first posts, I reviewed blowfish, but only based on other people’s experience with it. They didn’t care for it at all. But, I threw caution to the wind, and used some myself, because the Facebook and insta reviews are so great. I was honestly as underwhelmed as the people who reviewed it for me last year. It has aspirin, caffeine and something to calm your stomach. It claims to taste great and give you your mental clarity back. It tastes terrible, and only coffee and a gallon of water got the brain going. The one thing it did was curb the nausea. And thank goodness for that, it would have been a long day! But for me, it was 3 strikes for Blowfish, I won’t be ordering it again. It was so hard to choke down 16 ounces of it, and really had almost no effect on me.

Thanksgiving happened and with it came so much beer. I have a theory that the CBD oil I have been taking makes me not really want to drink as much as I normally do. (Yes, this is less, are you judging me? Because if so I’d like to point out that you are reading a hangover blog.) But, once the coffee kicked in, I took a milk thistle (Get some right now) and cracked open a beer. I didn’t keep count, but it wasn’t too crazy, since I was hosting, keeping an eye on everyone, making sure the new guy who came with some friends was ok, running down a trash bag from the neighbors, and generally being awesome. The trick that day was a lack of consistency and an early quit time. Which is the constant refrain for the weekend. Friday I drank wine, but took video game breaks and stopped by 8 PM. And Saturday, I tried! We had around a dozen people filter through, maybe 15. I was drinking a pretty high ABV beer called “melted snowman” which was actually pretty delicious. Then I switched to a much lower ABV, Shiner Ruby Redbird. I honestly had every intention of drinking a little too much because I got a new remedy in the mail that I wanted to try. But my body had other plans and decided 7:30 was a good time to stop drinking.

Edit to add: Another really important key to the whole weekend was not looking like I was hungover, tired, or over it. So, while hangover remedies, hydration, and quitting early all helped me feel ok, skincare made me look great too! Being 40 and having TERRIBLE life habits, (hello hangover blog) means I need some heavy duty help with my skin, otherwise I’m sure I would like a gremlin who ate after midnight. My secret skincare hangover cure is Rodan and Fields. I use redefine, eye cream, and lash boost! If you want to get some, here’s a link! How to look hot!

So here I am, Sunday, at 11:02 AM, with an emotional hangover. And no traces of a physical one. Am I growing up? Learning to quit early? Or was it just a fluke, or some self preservation, knowing I had to keep it together for so many days? Who knows, my amazing drunkies, who knows. The important thing is, we made it. So find a cozy spot, and enjoy the silence today! Soon I’ll be reviewing SB Remedy, so check back for that. In the meantime, drink lots of water, go buy some milk thistle and b-12, and don’t drink and drive! Happy Thanksgiving you sauced turkeys!