Christmas

Merry Christmas!! I’ll be taking off for another road trip over New Year’s but so many funny things happened over the Christmas week that I had to share some of them.

The Christmas week began with Amber inviting me to a get together with some of her friends. When we got there the first order of business was opening a large bottle of wine. The plastic wine opener we had wasn’t very sturdy and it took us a while to even get the corkscrew into the cork. Once we finally did, Amber’s friend then tried to remove the cork but ended up breaking off the corkscrew from the plastic instead so now there was a broken off piece of metal in the cork. Her friends went out to buy another opener and I thought perhaps I could grab onto the metal with pliers or a wrench to work it out but no such luck. I then tried my old college method of hitting the bottom of the bottle with a boot. No one believes me that this works but I used to do it all the time on wine tours because for some reason we could never remember to bring one and we were too cheap to buy a new one. However, proper bootage is necessary and we did not have an appropriate boot. (below is just an example picture) Her friends soon returned with a solid metal opener and nominated me to open the bottle. Since there was already a corkscrew stuck in the cork, I had to put the other one down all cattywampus. Because it was off center, I couldn’t get the hook on the opener to latch on to the lid to provide proper leverage so I proceeded to just reef on it. All of a sudden I heard a crack and I looked down to find I had snapped off the neck of the wine bottle!!! The opener was still in the cork and the cork was still in the neck and I had snapped off a good 2 inches of glass. I was afraid to look down because I was convinced that my hand was sliced off but amazingly, I wasn’t hurt. Everyone was staring at me in shock like I had turned into the Hulk or something. I have absolutely no clue how I snapped glass and frankly I’m scared of my own strength. Somehow after that I managed to decorate a wine glass and a martini glass in delicate snowflakes and peaceful mountains without them shattering apart in my robo-hands. I surprised myself at how good they looked since I’ve never been much for free handed craftiness.

For Christmas Eve, a friend of the family’s came by and we went hiking at one of the local parks. Dad was telling us about the gypsum mining history in the park and I plan to go searching out said mines come the spring. I had no idea the park had that much history.

The fun continued after Christmas Eve dinner when Amber and I had a dance battle. Mom had rented “Just Dance” for the Wii and it was so much fun. Amber won most of the battles because she actually followed the directions while I got caught up in the music and free styled most of it.

Christmas Eve Mass was fun because they had all sorts of crazy music going on. At one point a guy blew a horn (like an actual animal horn) and startled the tinsel out of everyone. I feared one man would have a heart attack. Then they inexplicably played the bongo drums. When it was time for communion my Aunt leaned over and said “you think they’ll fire up the drums and we can have a conga line up to communion?”

Christmas was very nice and peaceful until Don opened his gift from Kyle and Devin. They got him a remote controlled helicopter and he barely set the thing down all day. The thing only costs $14 and it’s durable as hell because Don crashed it all over the place. Kyle brought his Chinook over so there were 2 helicopters buzzing around. Here’s a picture of Don crashing right into my camera.

My favorite part of Christmas Day was when we were at my Grandparents house. There were plates of food all over the counter and Dad was grazing on the snacks when all of a sudden I heard a really loud crunching noise. Dad gets this weird look on his face and says “what the hell kind of nuts are these?” I looked past him and saw he had dipped his hand into the cat food bowl that was also on the counter! He spits it out and says “did I just eat damned cat food!?” Mom and I laughed so hard we were crying.

However my favorite part of the holiday week was on Sunday when Kyle, Don and I got into mischief. A few times a year, the three of us end up with some time on our hands and disaster typically ensues. With the recent discovery of old film reels of my father and his siblings, I find this to be an inherited trait. On those films my family was driving an old snowmobile and pulling the kids along behind it, usually at high rates of speed to try to dump them off. So when I saw Kyle and Don out riding their 4 wheelers I thought it would be a great time to carry on a family tradition. We grabbed my old pink saucer and a tow strap and (since it was my idea) I got the first ride. Don whipped me around the driveway and somehow (either by design or sheer luck) I whizzed by the trees and cars without hitting anything until the end when I had to let go to sail past the cherry tree. After we had all mastered the pink saucer (and Max ran off with it convinced it was a giant Frisbee) we decided to try my old purple sled. This didn’t work quite as well so I ran into the hanger and grabbed our old inner tube that we used to tow behind the boat.

Back when we were younger, when we were towed behind the boat, Kyle and Don usually fell off within a few seconds and I was the one who rarely did. One time the tube flipped over and I still hung on despite being dragged upside down until my Mom made my Dad stop the boat. This tenacity carried on into my cowgirl days when I was the only wrangler at the ranch to never fall off a horse despite the many, many, times when I rightfully should have. So I carried my sheer stubborn will and tenacity into this activity as well.

I had to bail at one point when Don whipped me into the pricker bushes at the end of the runway and then when I sailed into the field because I didn’t want to pop the tube. Don did his damndest to get me off though. After we all mastered the tube, I decided to up the stakes and put two people on the tube. This actually worked really well because of the extra weight. At one point I wasn’t even hanging on. I yelled I was falling off so Kyle grabbed my glove but my hand had slipped from inside the glove. Then Don and I were on the tube and I ended up taking over most of the tube and he was being dragged alongside. He yelled “if I fall you’re coming with me” and I yelled back “every man for himself!” During this whole time, Dad kept walking back and forth between the garage and Grandpa’s house and muttering “someone’s going to break their neck”

Kyle then took Don and I up behind the shop and whipped us up the hill and as we came back down we sailed into the cornfield and heard a “pop!” and immediately sank down to the ground. Because the field hadn’t been plowed under, a corn stalk had pierced the tube. Don wasn’t letting that deter him and decided to ride on the deflated tube. At this point he was just being dragged. We decided to quit while we were ahead and have many plans cooked up for some future fun.