Oh dear, Emily the Hobbit has me bogged!

Everytime, I try to read it it makes me sit in one spot! I know you can't understand this bogging! Chapter 3 it is the heather references. I am sitting in the heather. I want to buy a field of heather to read chapter three in. I want to sit there and look the elves in the face and say, what are you laughing about? Why are you so giddy, today? The movie shows a sober group of elves. They seem so wise and serious in the movie, but perhaps Tolkien was referring to heather to mean that they were drunk in that scene. I simply am stuck there. Why do I see a bunch of drunkards, Gandalf and the elves popping five and singing bar room songs? I am just sitting there.

Is Heather an intoxicant? Were they drinking among the heather? The dwarves had just overcome the Trolls and found some amazing swords among their spoils. What's with the laughing?