My kids had asked for a fake poop for Xmas. Terrific, I know. Oh, how we giggled when said fake steamer ended up on the floor, on the TV remote. In our bed. The shower. Atop the cooker. In the microwave. Well, one morning, I begin work on a news website at 6am CET, I came downstairs to find the plastic poop placed perfectly on the living room floor. I’ve not taken part in as much sport as I might and, with no one around, I figured I’d boot it into some imaginary top bins for my beloved Wolves - a proper, last minute, from outside the box screamer!
Fate was laughing behind my curtains, however, as no sooner had my barefoot touched what should have been a factory produced joke prop, it quickly became clear that this was poop. Actual poop!
Also, it was relatively fresh. Still soggy and warm, the shitcake flew in all angles as the cacktastrophe exploded round AND between my toes.
Forget shit hitting a fan. This fan had kicked shit all over the place. On the tables, the chairs, the millions of scatter cushions.
As I hopped to find some kitchen roll...it was Sunday and we had none, one of my cats looked at me for a second, did a cat tut, and then licked its arse, as shite slipped down the patio door.
What a way to start a day!
Not a bad story, but my Mom and I once spent Christmas in a dark hotel room in Chicago, feasting on convenience store snacks.
Let me set the scene: My Mom and I were on our way to Paris by way of Chicago and had initially planned to be in Paris on Christmas day. Mother Nature on the other hand, had other plans in the form of a gigantic snow storm which grounded both our Los Angeles to Chicago and Chicago to Paris connections.
Upon arrival in Chicago (already a day behind schedule) it was announced that we had missed our connecting flight and would be spending Christmas in the terminal. Having already spent the majority of Christmas day in an airport, we decided to get a hotel.
I’m not sure what time it was at this point but it must have been at least 8pm. We asked our cab driver what was open but as we were staying close to the airport (and it was Christmas night), our choices were...somewhat limited. I don’t know if we couldn’t find a Denny’s or if we just saw the 7/11 first, but there it was, shining like a beacon of hope in the otherwise bleak landscape.
For those that don’t know, 7/11 is a convenience store where people usually go to buy cigarettes, lottery tickets, light alcohol, snacks and the world-famous slurpee.
As you can imagine, a convenience store is not normally what one thinks of when planning a Christmas meal, but we were in good spirits and determined to find some festive food for the occasion. Festive food we most definitely did not find. The hot dog grill was turned off and the slurpee machine was broken so we ran up and down the aisles gathering items and returned to the waiting cab outside with our Christmas bounty.
Once in our hotel room, we sat down for our meal. My mom began setting out plastic forks and napkins in an attempt to create a dinner-like ambiance before we realised we didn’t have anything worthy of a fork. Our Christmas dinner was to consist of a Twix bar, a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, licorice and a premade pocket pie (it was Christmas for goodness sakes). No sandwich, no soup, nothing really that was substantial. We had a laugh and ate our Christmas dinner on the bed of a dark hotel while a Christmas rendition of a weird soap opera played in the background on TV.
I don’t really remember much else, but to this day it has to be one of the most memorable Christmases I have ever had. It also happened to be my very first white Christmas so I guess that more than made up for the lack of adequate sustenance.
One Christmas, my dad booked a very rustic chalet in the French Alps so we could ski over the holidays. Aware that the village had very limited supermarkets, he purchased a massive turkey ahead of time and transported it on ice in the car, only to realise upon arrival that the beautiful chalet did not in fact have a fully equipped kitchen. To be precise, it was missing an oven.
Somehow, and to this day I am not quite sure how, Dad turned out a full Christmas dinner, turkey, roast potatoes and all, through the creative use of a large saucepan and a microwave/broiler contraption.
Not only that, but it was one of the warmest Decembers on record so we also didn’t have any of the expected snow. But the village was so picturesque it didn’t matter that our ski gear stayed in the car for most of the trip!
Part of our Dutch tradition is to do Secret Santa - you pick a name and come up with a fun/sarcastic/slightly embarrassing crafted gift for a family member. This usually involves days of preparation, in which we’re all huddled up in our rooms with sticky notes on the door saying: DON’T ENTER. It’s all top-secret business until the final reveal.
We’ve now decided to stop doing this because we basically have zero social contact in the days leading up to it - not exactly the point of a family Christmas.
The nights drag on. Not a few hours, but 8 hours. I have four siblings + their partners, and each Secret Santa may take well over 45 minutes. Plus trying to get everyone in the room without bathroom breaks - big families will identify with this.
One person had to go treasure hunting in the pitch black garden and set up a tent on a roof of a car (because their purchased camper van hadn’t arrived yet - you get the idea?). Another time somebody got a job promotion and thus had to pitch a random product with the help of a PowerPoint presentation they had never seen before, and we’d rate their leadership skills. Or catapult chocolate dog poop out the window for whatever reason.
All Secret Santas are quite funny to the people not involved, but not necessarily the people they are for.
My sister was so afraid of cockroaches after her travels to Asia that my mom made her put her hand into a box filled with worms and bugs to grab a piece of paper outlining where the gift was hidden. My dad filled a box with industrial glue which required me to dip my hands and arms into it to snatch out a gift at the bottom. A brother hated carrot juice so much he was forced to drink two beer bottles of it to find the hidden message at the bottom (I helped him a bit).
Yep, family cruelty at its finest. Not surprised we dropped it now.
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