The worst Christmas ever

No, it wasn't this one. This has been a great Christmas. Topped off by a visit from my nephew from Colorado and a week off.

We had a really packed Christmas, but with very little of it that I was responsible for, other than baking a couple of pies. We just went from house to house, eating our way across town.

Christmas eve was at my sister-in law's. There were about 32 people stuffed into this little living room, and everybody staked out a spot. All the presents were passed out, and everyody started opening at once. Within about 30 seconds, the floor was completely obscured by a 4 foot pile of discarde wrapping paper and debris. It was the best kind of chaos. We left early because we had to coordinate the midnight Mass, but we hear they were still having fun well into the night.

I received a bunch of cool things: a hand mixer to replace the one I burned out, a selection of piggy banks (always the safe gift for uncle mike), a new chess set, and so on.

Today I am going to figure out something I can cook that will utilize my new mixer.

The best christmas ever

I have had plenty of good christmas experiences, but have also had some particularly bad ones.

One of the worst was when I was in the Air Force, stationed out in the middle of nowhere in Idaho. We were living off base and were really poor. It was cold there, and we ran out of heating oil in the middle of November, and had no money to fill the tank. Our only heat source was the oven.

So Christmas eve came around and we had nothing. My roommate and I decided that we had to do something. We walked over to the nursery. This was where they sold the christmas trees in this podunk town we were in. We waited until they closed and hopped the fence. All they had left were the kind of trees no one would buy--"charlie brown" trees. So we grabbed the least scraggly one and tossed it over the fence and brought it home.

Lacking actual ornaments, we decorated the tree with empty beer cans and tongue depressors. We had two joints, and put them under the tree as presents for each other.

We had, between us, about $3. We walked over to the Circle K and bought a six-pack of Old Milwaukee (the cheapest), and a can of salmon. My roommate happened to be the hospital cook, and he was able to whip up some surprisingly tasty salmon croquettes, which was christmas dinner.

We ate the salmon and drank the beer sitting in front of the oven. After dinner we smoked the joints. When it got cold enough that ice formed on the inside of the windows, we took benadryl so that we would fall asleep and be spared the discomfort of freezing to death while still awake. Did I mention that there were no beds, couches or mattresses?

I guess it is not surprising that I have absolutely no happy memories of that place except for the day I left.