I envision myself on Christmas Day in Grandma and Grandpa’s living room, handing them the free samples from Mary Had a Little Boutique because that’s all I’ve got. You can forget presents for my nieces and nephews; those gremlins are money pits. They’ll each get a hug.

Nothing is cheering me up. Not the wine, not the spare Christmas decorations I found in Eileen’s closet. I can’t even plug in the artificial tree, a kitschy, miniature pink thing, because I don’t know what happens when alcohol and electricity mix. I could be electrocuted. Or the tree could end up drunk. Nobody knows.

For my birthday last year, my grandmother sent a Kinollghy record player to my PO box in L.A. It’s styled to resemble yesteryear but with Bluetooth compatibility, and it looks damn spanking good on Eileen’s coffee table. I only have two Christmassy records (packaged together—a gift from my sister-in-law), one of which I tip out of a big square envelope-looking thing and onto the big black round thing that makes music happen. Presumably. This is my first time using the record player. I’ve been holding out to spite my grandmother, who would probably be able to sense it in the air if I did something she wanted me to. Like a bloodhound.

The volume isn’t quite high enough, so I try to notch it up by zipping the needle around. Some wine splashes onto the red disc, but that’s fine. “Mariah Carey is thirsty today,” I remark.

The record squeals and skips to the second track, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

Mariah Carey isn’t thirsty, Mariah Carey is possessed by demons. The song spitting out of my record player with a weird succession of thwip-thwip-thwips sounds like an attack, the beats arising not from Mimi’s unparalleled vocal range but rather from a dark temple at the earth’s core, storming and sinister, some creature chanting in a haunted language with the exception of one clear refrain: “Ooooooooh, Chriiiiiiistmaaaas!” The lights brighten and then dim, buzzing in discordant sync with the thwip-thwip-thwip, the high, mangled “Ooooooooh Chriiiiistmaaaas, Ooooooooh Chriiiiistmaaaas.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end; I am instantly and unfortunately sober.

I try to pry the record off the player, but the needle grates a hot spray of sparks that burns my hand and I shriek, springing back. Everything electric is going haywire: the overhead light, a Himalayan salt lamp, the miniature twenty-four-inch television, my Ocean Galaxy Light Projector. They’re all drunk, pulsating wildly, bright and then dim, bright and then dim—my head spins along, stomach roiling. I’m about to paint the walls with pizza rolls. It’s an earthquake! It’s Revelation! Quick, Bettie, be religious!

“Dear sir, baby God,” I cry, reaching for more wine. “Small, holy bundle.” You know, on second thought, perhaps the wine can wait. “Forgive me. I won’t do again whatever it was that you’re mad about, you’ve got my word. I swear on Bettie Watson’s life.” Not Bettie Hughes, mind you. Bettie Watson. My grandmother’s lived long enough, whereas I’ve got so much ahead of me.