Disasters » Jolana Malkston

Christmas hasn’t always been merry for our family. Be assured that it is merry most of the time. However, there were memorable exceptions throughout the years.

For many years, my mother’s extended family celebrated Christmas–the eve and the day–at my great aunt Katie’s home because she had the longest and widest dining room. We put three large tables together so the entire family—kids included—could sit at the dinner table together. The Christmas tree, with everyone’s presents beneath it, occupied her living room. Before I tell you about one particular Christmas nightmare at Aunt Katie’s, I need to fill you in on the stars of this misadventure: my second cousins, the fraternal twins M and B. Continue reading »

We should have stuck to turkey, but no, my mother-in-law and I had delusions of grandeur. We were going to cook up a Thanksgiving feast that no one in the family would ever forget. We succeeded beyond our expectations, but not in the way we envisioned.

At the time, Macho Guy and I were still young marrieds living down South. His family drove down to spend Thanksgiving with the two of us, and they brought along a small cooler filled with pheasant breasts. The guys are all hunters and they bagged their limit. They proudly laid their bounty before us.

Early Thanksgiving morning, I got the turkey out of the refrigerator and discovered it had hardly thawed. I hadn’t taken it out of the freezer soon enough. I panicked. We would not have turkey for Thanksgiving. No drumsticks. No wishbone. No stuffing. I was a dead woman.

Luckily for me, my mother-in-law came up with a positively brilliant idea. Let’s use the pheasant breasts instead. Hey, it sure sounded brilliant to me. The pheasant breasts weren’t frozen. Done deal! Continue reading »