Christmas Memories

At my work we had a luncheon that included opportunities for people to share Christmas experiences. A former FBI agent fondly recalled how a man faked his own kidnapping a few days before Christmas, with the result that the agent had to spend Christmas day itself attempting to solve the kidhapping caper. The story had a happy ending as the agent was able to assist in bringing charges against the bogus victim and send him off to prison. Someone received a motor scooter as a girl, was confused as to which handgrip was for the brake, and as a result flew headfirst through a window of her neighbor's car. She spent a good part of her Christmas day in the emergency room along with kids who had recieved skateboards and similar items for Christmas. Another of our merry crew recalled awaking in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to the sound of a smoke alarm. He peered downstairs and saw an orange glow, then took a closer look and saw flames. He yelled out "Fire! Fire!" until his parents responded. His mother had left candles burning on the coffee table and, as they were sitting directly on the table, when the candles burned down to table level they set the table on fire. His father threw a wet towel on the table to extinguish the fire, and this splattered wax all over the face of his mother. His mother suffered no severe burns, but a good part of the morning was spent peeling off the wax and administering burn ointment. Several people told of their childhood efforts to discover secret presents through unwrapping and re-wrapping presents under the tree, and so forth. One individual had a shrewd mother who learned of the boy's snooping, then placed a very disappointing gift under the tree for her sleuthing son. He was pretty down until she unveiled his true gift on Christmas day. One individual told how he was quite disappointed one Christmas morning when he was a child, so he proceeded to speak directly to his parents about the cheapness of their ways. We heard a tale of woe of an LDS missionary celebrating his first Christmas in Taiwan, facing another 18 months there as a missionary at a time when he was painfully homesick. He decided the best way to cope was to prepare a traditional Christmas dinner. The best he could to for the turkey was to go to the market where they slaughtered a chicken for him, and then he filled it with stuffing and put it in the oven so that it could slowly bake for 4 hours as he and his companion tracted in the streets. The missionaries had a housekeeper, and she happened to pop into their apartment as this Christmas feast was cooking in the oven. Taking pity on the missionaries when she saw the chicken in the over, she decided to lend a helping hand - - she took the chicken out of the oven and finished its preparations, chopping the bird into numerous small pieces and placing it on a platter, a classic Chinese way to serve a chicken dinner. The same individual told of his father, a former Golden Gloves boxing champion, having given his boys boxing gloves one Christmas. He gave them a few pointers on boxing, after which the individual's brother popped him in the face and broke his nose. The nose is not quite straight even to this day.