Crappy Christmas Leftovers and other Holiday Hassles

EVER HAD A BAD HAIR HOLIDAY?

OK, so the above pic of my lovely niece Rebecca pretty much sums up my Christmas. I wish Christmas was called Johntmas or Georgetmas or Bartholomewtmas, but it's not.

It's called Christmas. And I have to endure it, like a bowling ball-sized ornament around my neck.

Rebecca is the oldest of my nieces or nephews, and actually gave me permission to use this picture.

She's 23 or something. I used to call her Minky when she was much younger. Now look at the treatment I get. I can't even take her picture without getting the finger.

Anyway, on to my Festive Fit of Follies and Foibles.



The woman above is my lovely sister-in-law Kim, domestic diva and survivor of her husband and my brother Gerry's sick sense of humour, among other things.

Well, as I was being whipped 100 times on Boxing Day by my evil sisters into washing the dirty dishes generated by 19 or 20 people, she forced me to take a bunch of leftover turkey home.

"You can make a soup," she said.

"No, I can't," I said.

"Yes you can," she said.

So like any sane man, I submitted.

A couple of days later, before rot could set in and other of nature's nasty doings could claim the leftover turkey I had stuck into my fridge, I decided to make some turkey rice soup in my crock pot.

The problem is, I'm a cooking crack pot, a culinary disaster waiting to happen. Nonetheless, I forged on.

I found a recipe on the internet.

I even called up my mom, who for whatever reason expressed skepticism.

After taking 20 minutes to explain 19 minutes more worth of information than I could possibly retain, I proceeded.


My execution was less than perfect.

I boiled and then simmered the turkey for about an hour to generate some stock. I cut the carrots. I cut the onions. I threw in the tomatoes. Then I dumped in the turkey and other stuff.

And then I THOUGHT I turned on my crock pot to let it all meld together for six or seven hours, as instructed. Unfortunately, it wasn't plugged in.

Six or seven hours later, at roughly 12:30 a.m., I went to check on it. DOH! I plugged in the crock pot and went to bed, figuring it would be perfect when I woke up.

Not so.


It was the most bland concoction of crap that I have ever tasted.

I've since put it all in a plastic container, hoping that my son -- who's like PacMan from the old video game when it comes to food -- will consume it without even asking me what it is.

Instead, I suspect that a week from now, after green things start to grow on it, I'll be throwing it out.

Another Christmas-related issue I've had is trying to impress my kids by getting their Christmas gift to me up and running.

I take pix of them and others all the time, they know that.

It's a digital picture frame. And I see now that it's got my fingerprints all over it.

So, here's what it's supposed to do: It's supposed to play a series of your pictures that you've taken and downloaded on to a memory card.

Here are the pix it's currently playing:

And the reason it's playing THOSE pix is because, surprise, surprise!!!, my frickin' memory card from my camera won't work in the picture frame.

As usual, life is all about fitting something inside something else. And it not fitting just right.

Such is life. When's Valentine's Day?