Memories & mishaps

Turkey troubles
One time when carving the turkey on the buffet, one end of the table collapsed and the turkey went sliding across the floor.

All I managed to do was grab the gravy.

There I am, standing there holding a pot of gravy. The look on my face, it must have been priceless!
There was also a prank I pulled on my family many years ago during the holidays.

We would all gather after serving all the guests in the restaurant and sit down for a late-night family holiday meal; it was always my job to carve the turkey.

This particular year I acted very upset and said in my whiniest voice “Why do I always have to carve? I just finished cutting 50 of these for the restaurant and you guys eat all the best parts leaving me just scraps.”

At that point I stabbed the turkey with my fork and said, “Hey, watch this,” and pulled out a pheasant I had roasted and stuffed inside.

The whole table looked at me in shock and our kids who were pretty young. They started screaming, “Look it had a baby!”

I carved the breast off and put it on my plate and sat down without a word and ate… but I could not contain my smirk!

That is one holiday we could never forget.
— Tommy Klauber

M.I.A.
Every year, my wife insists that we head north in an attempt to see snow the week between Christmas and New Year’s. 

For six straight years we headed to various locations up north from Cincinnati, to Detroit and other places.
One year we decided on Buffalo, where we were sure to find snow and then we could visit Niagara Falls. 

So, we made our flight arrangements for my wife and I and our four children.

We would always take flights on Christmas Day, as this is probably the best day to fly because many people are at their destination on that day and the flights and airport were never a challenge… until 2005. 

The first leg of the flight went flawless as we arrived in Philly earlier than expected.  As we taxied in from the runway the plane had to stop before reaching the terminal.  After about 10 minutes of just sitting there the pilot came on and explained the delay. 

Apparently the workers at the Philadelphia airport also wanted to enjoy their Christmas day at home with family, and nearly all of the baggage handlers had called in sick. 

We looked out the window of the plane and we saw numerous luggage carts full of suitcases just sitting next to the terminal with thousands of bags waiting to be loaded on planes.

It was these luggage carts that were blocking us from pulling up to the terminal.  The pilot warned us that there was a very good possibility that some luggage probably would not reach the destination with the flights.

When we arrived in Buffalo, we anxiously went to the carousel to retrieve our luggage. 

I felt very fortunate that five of the six bags made it safely to Buffalo.

But my suitcase didn’t make it.

Unfortunately, you can only turn clothes inside out only a couple times before no one would to stand near you. 

The most concerning part of my missing luggage was that I had packed my good camera and camcorder, which was far more valuable than my clothes.

But, everything arrived safely and we still had time to get some great photos of our trip to Niagara Falls. 
— Rick Schappacher

Tardy for the party
It was Christmas Day, 1990. We had moved with our two little girls from Helena, Mont., to Detroit Lakes, Minn.

Our family could not make it to Minnesota for the holidays, and that was our first Christmas without them. So, we chose to invite friends — many friends — to our newly built lakeside home for Christmas dinner.

We over-decorated and we over-baked. We were more than ready to show off and share our holiday spirit, our crafty skills, and our gourmet cooking abilities.

Christmas morning buzzed by with the excitement from two small children. We were happy young parents who had pulled off a thrilling Christmas morning.

And now it was time to move into dinner preparations.

Tables set, check. Hubby dressed to impress, check. Hostess-with-the-mostest, check.

Oops. Who forgot to bring the turkeys inside for defrosting? Who forgot that turkeys were the main course for the extravagant feast that we had been promoting to our friends? The very same feast that was to begin at 4 p.m. And it was 1 p.m.

Both turkeys were still on the garage floor. In the cold, cold tundra of Detroit Lakes. They were frozen solid.

Now what to do?

Rip off the tie. Don the scrappy bathrobes. Trip over each other a time or two. Damn the torpedoes! It’s turkey warfare.

Keep the hot water coming. Don’t stop. Keep pouring, more, more, more. We just have to be able to get the organs out, then (the turkey) will be off to the 500° oven.

Is this safe? Will any of our new found Minnesotan friends die from food poisoning? We didn’t know, and we had no time to think.

The finale went something like this:

At 3:30 p.m., we carved whatever was cooked off the sides and the top of the turkeys. Bit by bit, we had a small pile of turkey for the very large turkey platter.

We laughed with our friends. We drank. We had our fill of holiday dishes and desserts. And we had some turkey.
— Michelle Patterson

Turkey-squirrel knockout
Having suffered damage to two homes — one in Miami and another in Westfield, N.J. — caused by squirrels, “fancy rodents,” in my opinion, I am not overly fond of them. I realized that my daughter thought the common name for the species was “damnsquirrel” when at the age of 4, she pointed one out to my shocked father.

A few years later, I decided to buy a fresh turkey instead of the usual frozen variety for our Christmas dinner. I worked long hours and was habitually in a hurry, but always well organized. As such, I went grocery shopping five days early to beat the last-minute crowds. It never dawned on me that a fresh turkey might have a short expiration date.

When I pulled the turkey out of a second refrigerator in our basement on Thanksgiving morning, the stench just about knocked me off my feet. My significant other immediately told me the error of my purchase.

That turkey had a one-way trip to the outside trash can, and my disappointed father had to eat chicken for his Thanksgiving dinner.

The next day, my daughter ran into the house shouting that there was a dead squirrel in our front yard. She shrieked, “He must have eaten your turkey!”

By the look of the trash can, he had chewed a large hole in the lid. Half the neighborhood must have heard her! Moral of the story: Buy only frozen turkeys.
––– Nancy Johnson

Tradition overhaul
Traditions make the holidays.

They are expected, welcomed, and even the hokiest rituals bring “comfort and joy.”

Don’t find them essential? Oh sure, just try not putting up your Christmas penguin village one time, and deal with that gale-force blowback.

Even so, over time, traditions evolve, new ones are established, and some just fade away.

During the holidays, back in Michigan, many a comfort can be expected: Lions football, children diving into frozen, crispy piles of leaves, my mother and her siblings trying to figure out how old they are and the ages of their parents when they passed (“If I was 10 when Tom went to Korea, and mom was 35 when the dog got hit, then dad was 67 when he died.”), gruff teenagers needing to “go for a walk,” Vernor’s punch, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors will be welcomed to the Heise house for holiday cheer, which includes food, drink and shared stories of times gone by.

Cousins will sneak sips of Baileys and uncles will drink Labatts.

And then, there was the year that changed everything, where trust was broken, loyalties questioned and foundations rocked.

It started when the holiday fare reached its peak fragrance, and the offerings made their way to the table.
First up was Uncle Mike, the patriarch of the family. All were served as stories and gossip were suspended to dig in.

The eating was moving along happily when suddenly Uncle Mike put his napkin to his mouth and made a horrible face.

“What was that?” he demanded to know as he pointed at my sister’s sad little Tofurkey loaf.

“Tofu!” she proclaimed.

A series of indignant protests and hurt questions followed.

His traditions had been rocked, and he needed a plan.

“Janet, the coats,” he finally decided, and made his way to his daughter’s house in the country. There he knew a fat golden turkey was being carved up that very moment, without booby-trap side dishes like quinoa or tempeh.

They said hurried goodbyes, Aunt Janet grabbed her pretzel Jello salad, and left fish-tail tracks in the fresh snow. Has he forgiven? Yes. Has he learned to trust again? Well… this past summer, he refused a mozzarella, tomato, and basil skewer, saying only that the mozzarella looked “suspicious.”
— Lakewood Ranch Town Hall Director of Operations Ryan Heise

Blue Christmas
Well, it was the first year we lived here in Lakewood Ranch — 1999.

We had a business in Sarasota Square Mall that we had just bought.

It was our first Christmas here and we had only been in the house we bought for two weeks.

We both were working every day, and we both got deathly sick that first winter.

We were so busy with work we did not have time to think about decorations, a tree or anything.

The only Christmas item we had in our house was this ceramic tree my grandmother made me when I was a little girl.

Christmas morning comes — we’re both sick as can be and feeling terrible — and the only decoration we had was our little tree. Our kids and grandkids were in Virginia and Texas and this was also our first Christmas away from them.

We had no presents to open, and it was just sad.

So, we walk into the family room Christmas morning and see that little tree — our only decoration. Donny turns the knob to turn the light on and the bulbs burned out.

That was it.

I started bellowing and crying. Our only decoration didn’t work.

I look back and can laugh now, but it was the hardest Christmas we’d ever had.

Of course, it was hard for our kids, too, but we called them and talking to them made the day better.
— Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh