Re: Request for Christmas/Holiday Memories

Julie Cook wrote:
> The stories in Yowie's White Christmas thread made me think that
> surely we have some interesting holiday stories we can share and
> perhaps some even involve cats.
>
I'm afraid this doesn't involve Christmas or cats, but I can think of a
couple of things involving U.S. Thanksgiving.

The first is thought to be an urban legend but actually happened to me and
my mom & my brother Scott.

(1) It was around 1976 or so and a local grocery store kept advertising on
television "Let XX do the cooking for you!" Turkey, bread dressing, mashed
potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. So mom said what the heck, I
don't feel like cooking. She called and ordered this meal to be picked up
early in the afternoon on Thanksgiving. We get to the store, they carry the
box with our meal to the trunk of her car. My brother commented as he
helped put it in the trunk, this box is cold. We got home, opened the
box... inside was a FROZEN RAW 12 pound turkey; frozen mashed potatoes &
frozen gravy... yep, everything was frozen solid. If you've ever cooked a
turkey, you know it takes 2-3 days to thaw a 12 pound bird out. Mom was
FURIOUS! "Do the cooking FOR me?", she yelled! What cooking did they do?!
We drove back to the store and my normally meek, mild mother practically
threw this box of frozen stuff at the manager and accused them of blatant
false advertising while demanding her money back. We then drove to another
grocery store, bought some nice steaks and baking potatoes and we had steak
& baked potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner that year.

(2) In the 1980's my brother Scott and I were roommates very nice rental
house. I'd bought him a smoker for his birthday in June and he decided it
would be great to smoke the Thanksgiving turkey. The night before
Thanksgiving he went out and got rip-roaring drunk with his buddies and
didn't get home until about 3:30 AM. He figured he'd just get up around
6-7AM, light the coals in the smoker, stick the bird on the rack above the
water pan with some soaked hickory chips and high-tail it back to bed for a
few hours so we could eat around noon...

WRONG! That Thanksgiving day was the coldest day on record in this part of
Tennessee... ever. It was about 16F degrees. Do you think those coals
would stay lit? Hell no! Do you think he got to go back and take a nap?
Hell no! Do you think he felt and looked like crap? Hell yes! Do you
think I was laughing my *** off at him the entire time? You betcha! Oh,
and do you think the turkey was done by noon? Um... no. Good thing we
hadn't invited guests. We finally got to eat the dang thing around 4PM. By
that time it was more of a joke than a meal... but afterwards he finally got
to take his nap. Oh, and could I have helped him with all this? Yes, I
kept saying, "Let's just bring it in and roast it in the oven" but his
stubborn self *insisted* he was going to smoke that turkey. Okey doke :)

Jill


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