Monday Minutiae: True Dangers of Christmas

Okay, for starters, here are a few of the true delights of the Christmas season.

We enjoyed a lovely Seahawk-winning day yesterday. 

We now have a Christmas tree and, as always, a story to go along with it, even prior to decorating. 

After the Seahawk game, I went for a walk in the woods. While taking step after step through crusty snow, it dawned on me that I ought to see if we had a potential Christmas tree out there. 

And, I found one.  It was relatively close to the house.  

It's a spruce about five feet tall with a nice shape, 'cept for one side pocket where we could incorporate the Raiha-family Christmas-enhancement program of drilling a hole, stealing a limb from another tree and inserting. 

Usually, from what I've been told in the past, several borrowed limbs are needed on some of Ron's selections from the woods. 

In our case, only one. 

So, I trudged back to the house where Bill was in the bedroom. 

"I have an idea," I said. "There's a tree out there that would work for our Christmas tree, and it's free."

As is customary, Bill, the consummate forester, pondered quietly for a minute, finally responding, "But that's one of the trees I planted."

I kinda expected that answer. 

"I'll go to town and find you a tree," he said. So, we went to Yoke's and picked out the first tree we saw, a beautifully shaped grand fir.  

So, the tree was propped by the side of the house waiting for decorating. 

During our Christmas tree excursion, I received texts from Debbie, saying she had a Dijorno pizza in her freezer which she could bring over for dinner.  Swiss Miss had gone to town with her Sandpoint High School friend Selena.

So, a plan was hatched.  I'd buy another pizza.  Willie and Debbie would come and, later, Swiss Miss would arrive with Selena.

We had a delightful reunion and a wonderful visit while feeding on pizza and salad. 

And so, the festive season has begun BUT I was reminded Friday night, and I have already experienced several reminders that Christmas isn't always the joyous, saintly, generous, cheerful time, as advertised.

Along with the season come dark secrets AND dangers, especially in the cupboards. 

The Friday-night dinner reminder came when my sister Laurie brought up the brown sugar in their cupboard.  

It didn't take too many words spilling from Laurie's mouth before I interjected that I had brown sugar just like that in my cupboard.

Then, my brother Kevin chimed in that he had an idea for those bags of brown sugar aka cement that haven't been touched since last year or the year before.

"Get a hammer," he said.  "Pound it down."

"I've done that," I said, "doesn't work that well. . . still big hard crumbles. 

Yes, I'm betting that some of you readers may just have some similar bags of brown sugar in your cupboards. 

And, if you've been searching in the cupboards, which are usually located above your hairline, you've probably suffered an attack or two from the cupboard. 

For example, that jar of molasses you plan to use for your gingersnaps----which when pushed aside as you try to find the lemon extract which you use every ten years or so---comes tumbling out of the cupboard, hits the counter, bounces and, if your body gets out of the way in time, lands on the floor and starts rolling after you.

So far, this year, I haven't suffered any head injuries from cupboard contents, but the season is young. 

Laurie also mentioned the cane sugar bags in her cupboard, some of which may have been there for more than a year.  

All I could think of then---though I politely refrained from commenting at the dinner table----were the tiny worms I found one year crawling  after opening an ancient flour sack from a bottom cupboard.

Eeeeyouyuck!  

That sack headed for the garbage immediately!  

Seems some of us are not exactly Betty Crocker's, baking bread twice weekly, whipping up a batch of homemade brownies.  

No, we're the Lazy Betty Crocker's who purchase the mixes at the store, throw it and some eggs and water into a bowl, bake and serve.

Because we take the lazy way out our cupboard ingredients, purchase every five years or so exist at the ingredients in waiting.  They wait for a day when some of us try the true domestic route and actually cook something from scratch.

Therein lies the danger.  

Some of that stuff doesn't move from its spot for so long that when it finally does, things get dicey----and sometimes very physical. 

So, yes, Christmas is not always homemade mincemeat, fruitcakes and all things lovely.

Speaking of fruitcakes, that brings another scary thought.  How about that family with the 141-year-old fruitcake baked by Great-Grandma Fidelia Ford. 

What if one of these centuries a juvenile descendant gets into the food like we Brown kids used to do, finds that fruitcake, like we Brown kids used to do, tries to skim off a bite very carefully so nobody will notice and then dies. 

Could be bad and sad and nobody might ever know the cause of death. 

When I read about Fidelia's fruitcake, I couldn't help but think of "the Christmas cookies."  

If my friends Pam and Marian are reading, they need no explanation.

The rest of you, however, would need to know that somewhere---at least I think this is true---somewhere in this house, I have a canister of Christmas cookies baked sometime back in the late '70s-early '80s. 

They had been in the freezer for only six months when Pam came to visit one summer over at our former home on Great Northern Road.  

I had nothing else to serve as the hostess with the mostess, so I pulled out the Christmas cookies from the freezer. 

They seemed to like them, maybe even so much that Pam took the rest with the canister. 

This part of the story is foggy.  What I do remember, however, is several years of cookie exchanges between the Love house and Pam wherever she happened to live at the time.  One time we made the exchange at San Francisco airport. 

I do believe I received them last.  If I ever find them again before I die, I'll give 'em back to Pam.  

If not, I'll include her in my will.  I think she'll be pleased that I remembered her with those priceless cookies. 

There is much more to tell about dangers of Christmas, but for today the cupboards took a lot of time and space.  

Also, today I decorate my Christmas tree, and sometimes things happen, as you may note below. 

In short, I suggest the following.

1. OSHA needs to set up a new department where representatives make pre-Christmas visits in the households of America.  I do believe these visits, complete with fines imposed for too many bags of concrete brown sugar would make a huge difference in our country's safety record. 

2. For homemakers, along with Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, Tear-Your-Hair-Out Wednesday, we should add Purging Thursday to occur the first Thursday of each New Year. 

Get those garbage bags, empty those cupboards, fill up the bags and head to the dump.  

Follow this procedure and guaranteed not fines when OSHA comes around for the visit. 

All a part of Making America Safe Again for the holiday season. 

Happy Monday. Off to decorate a tree. 

  

This appeared yesterday in my Facebook memories from six years ago.

Hoping for an incident-free and efficient decorating session today.