Bad Manners and Brimstone

Every family has had a holiday oopsie or two. 

An oopsie is something that seems like a disaster at the time but becomes a great source of fun to recount at family holidays in later years.  My oopsie came when I was 5 years old.  When my Dad used a rotary mower on the lawn during the warm months, I loved to follow him with my doll carriage and pretend I was also mowing the lawn.

It was decided that I would receive a child-sized rotary lawn mower as a Christmas gift.  I loved it but there was nothing to mow in December. 

Well, maybe there was.  The tree was the biggest green thing  around and, while Mom and Dad were in the kitchen, I plowed my new mower up the tree with all my might. As might be expected, the tree crashed to the floor. 

Dad was all ready to give me a good whoppin’ but Mom stepped in.  When she was my age she’s done something similar.  Her parents had a Christmas tradition of a blue trumpet ornament that could be blown and produce a note.  It was a competition among the children to be the first to blow the trumpet.  Mom was the fourth child in the family and,  at the age of five, she decided it was her turn. 

The trumpet was off on the side of the tree but Mom had a plan.  she climbed on the chair by the window.  Then she hauled herself onto the window sill. From the windowsill she moved to the bookcase.   She could see the trumpet  and, by leaning just a little bit out she could finally get to blow it. 

Not quite.  Mom fell into the tree and knocked it down. 

Because of her misadventure Mom couldn’t punish me much for mine.  I was denied library privileges for the month of January but that was it. 

What are your holiday oopsies?

 

Our's was just a few years ago. We were serving beef tenderloin and fried oysters. DH was going the frying and grabbed a large bag of crawfish boil out of the pantry instead of the fish fry coating. $100 of oysters were too salty to eat!

One year my dad thought it would be cool to hang the Christmas tree upside down.  Said tree dried out quickly since we couldn't water it.

Another year he decided to have a holly tree instead of a normal tree.  I actually thought it was a good idea at first.  The tree he cut down was a bit sparse so he had extra branches.  He drilled holes in the trunk and stuck them in.  It really looked nice for a short period of time.  Then we learned that holly trees dry out very fast when they're cut.  If you think that stepping on fir needles barefoot is uncomfortable, imagine what stepping on dried holly leaves is like!  Ouch.  It drew blood.  Ouch.  Ouch.  Ouch.  But it's still a happy memory of something that didn't quite work out as planned.

Years ago, I tried making a Stollen at my mother's house (my mother loved anything with candied and dried fruit). Although I had made bread before, this was my first experience with a sweeter dough (as I remember, it had more sugar than basic bread dough).  My parents' house was quite drafty, and I had to rig up a place warm enough for the dough to rise.  Couldn't use the oven because my mother was making fruitcake (again with the candied and dried fruits).

But I finally got the dang thing to rise, and was able to finish baking it before midnight Christmas Eve.  We were cleaning as the oven and the Stollen and fruitcake cooled. Then my mother and I turned around, and the cat was on the counter, taking a bite from the Stollen.  We shooed her off, decided the bite mark wasn't too bad.  Carefully cut away anything the cat's mouth would have touched, covered the Stollen with Saran Wrap, and stuck it into the now cool oven to protect it from the cat (who I now realized shared my mother's love for candied and dried fruits).  We finally went to bed at 1 am.

Christmas morning, we are just getting ready to open presents, and my mother decides that she will bake some biscuits, which will be ready by the time all the presents are open.  She turns on the oven to preheat while getting the biscuits ready.  A smell reminded us of what we had placed in the oven the night before.

Well, we only used a little Saran Wrap, and we managed to pull off most of the melting plastic.  So a little more trimming with a knife (by now the Stollen seems to be suffering from some kind of mange), and a liberal application of fondant. 

In addition to the Stollen, I don't know how much melted Saran Wrap and cat saliva I ingested that day.  It has been nearly 40 years, so I guess there were no ill effects. But I have had absolutely no desire to eat Stollen again.

The first year we had a microwave oven, my mother set it to heat up the Christmas plum pudding. Didn't really believe the instruction booklet that said things took much less time to heat up.

The pudding reached what is technically called the autoignition temperature. We were left with a cannon-ball-sized lump of charcoal, a microwave that took days to clean, and a frantic call from the neighbours who thought the smoking mess we'd hastily scooped into a pot and shoved onto the back deck was an indication our house was on fire.

My holiday oopsie came when my mother-in-law came to visit us on our first Thanksgiving. Naturally, I wanted everything to be perfect so I overplanned everything, slaved away, and luckily everything went as planned. Except for one item. I had made brownies for dessert, and my mother-in-law complimented me on the brownies and said that she especially liked the nuts I had added. But I had added no nuts to the recipe. No, there were no bugs in the flour, no pets to contribute "add-ons" to the batter, and to the best of my knowledge I had mixed the batter thoroughly before I baked them. I managed to smile and accept her compliment gracefully but inside I was cringing. 

Not really an “oopsie” but a great story that has now become part of family lore.

My husband met my sister and her family in 2012 at our first joint Thanksgiving.   We had arrived on Tuesday, so by Friday he had only known them for 3 days.

My sister always makes soup with the turkey carcass and leftovers and included fresh Brussels sprouts that year.  And we all know those delicious little cabbages can create noxious emissions for some poor souls.

So, after our delicious soup dinner, DH, sis, niece and I were playing cards at the dinner table when the toxic gas emerged from DH.  No sound, just a wave of odor that hit me first, and as I grimaced, poor DH was so red with embarrassment.  My sister asked, “What happened?” and 2 seconds after that the smell hit her and my niece simultaneously. 

Cries of “Oh.My.God” filled the room and hubby was just mortified and wanted the ground to swallow him up.  It was really bad.  My sister was so gracious and took responsibility and totally blamed herself for putting the sprouts in the soup.  She kept emphasizing that it was her fault and hubby shouldn’t feel bad in the least.

The part he really hates is when we retell this story EVERY SINGLE Thanksgiving.  I just told him that he’s very special because we don’t have any other in-law stories.

We had just purchased our new house in October and invited both sides for Thanksgiving in November.
My DH kept wanting to replace the faucet in the sink as we got close to Thanksgiving.
I Said let us prioritize the prep for Tgiving dinner.
So eventually we get everything ready and he starts replacing the sink.
But some nut or whatever is stuck and he forces it...and cracks a pipe.
In the kitchen sink.
on the day before Thanksgiving.

Call a plumber right? Pre-internet you need a phone book.
But we don't have a phone book cuz we are new.
He is too embarrassed to ask a neighbor for a phone book so I have to.
Did you know 24-hour plumbers are not always 24 hour plumbers?
It is too late to go to the hardware store.

So then Thanksgiving day comes.
DH is under the sink, all 6' 4" of him.
His Dad and his grandpa are standing in front of the sink, saying things like "never start a project when the hardware store is closed."
Meanwhile I am tryign to fix Tgivng dinner with these 3 blocking the way and having to use the bathroom sink.

He wasn't allowed to do plumbing for decades.