Holidays Upon Ice

I am not one to lie about the troubles my family has had with the holidays. I am a fervent participant in all holiday goings on in our house and therefore am present for most of these mishaps. I am also a fervent supporter of the hilarity that can be found from witnessing these events firsthand.  It really doesn’t matter which holiday, St. Patrick’s, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Halloween, we decorate. Within each of these holidays is a horror story waiting to be told.

St. Patrick’s Day as you have probably already noticed hasn’t been in my good graces for long. So, when we put out our annual St. Patrick’s Day miniature flag, that’s all we do. Nothing would be fun about this if no one got hurt. My father, while attempting to try and replace this flag tripped on the brick wall that leads to our front lawn and well took the mini flag post with him. He had a bruise on his stomach for a few weeks. It was quite entertaining for my brother and I.

One Easter, after my brother and I had gotten our presents from the “Easter Bunny” and had successfully already begun to be bored of them decided it would be no fun to not remember all the fun we had. So off the garage went Matt to search for the video camera. As he was searching, I moved a dining room chair into the middle of the kitchen. With my present in hand, my Wild Thornberry’s dolls, we recreated the Wild Thornberry’s. I should have known this was a bad idea considering the time he flung me into a dresser at my grandparents but alas, I didn’t. Nevertheless, Matt decided to make it interesting and pushed back the chair upon which I sat. Away went me and the dolls and broken was the chair. Part of the broken chair went into my back and I had a long scab there for a few weeks. We weren’t allowed to play in the kitchen anymore. It was all caught on tape too.

Thanksgiving mishaps are my second love, the first being Christmas mishaps. However, this Thanksgiving mom and I got up really early to start making the cake and pie we were bringing. It was fun making a pie with my mom. As I was mixing the cake mix and the pie was successfully in the oven, we didn’t hear the timer, giving the pie and extra forty minutes to bake. Needless to say, the pie caught on fire and turned ash black. That year we just brought a cake.

Ah, Christmas. This year as my dad strung lights, he for some reason unbeknownst to me, had a staple gun in his hand. While he was standing on the ladder, staple gun in hand, he accidentally fell backward onto the carpeting allowing the staple gun to go off. The staple went through most of the tree but hit on string of lights in the fuse. The wires were fried and all the lights were done for. As dad cooled off from his mishap, mom and I took off all the lights (he had been on his last string) and threw them away. Dad and I took a trip to Target, CVS, Longs, Albertson’s, and Walgreen’s to no avail as we searched for clear tree lights. An hour and half later, we’re back with the clear lights. It takes another hour and a half to string them up. He fell off the ladder three other times. It was quite hysterical.

Everyone knows that Halloween means carved pumpkins right? Well my mom absolutely loves pumpkin carving. There isn’t much to imagine or describe here, but let’s just say that that year, the blood wasn’t fake.

So each year, for every holiday, we have mishaps. I guess it happens to all of us. My parents swear that half of this stuff never happened, but how fun would it be to deny them the real truth. When I remind them of these tales, I see them blushing as they deny it all. It intrigues me more that each year we spend our holidays on “ice” when we all know something bad is going to happen. I think they should just embrace that stuff happens.

It just usually happens to us.

During the holidays.