…and other Christmas shenanigans.
I’m baaaaaack!! After a 2 week holiday blogging hiatus I’m back at it and ready to see what’s to come in 2011! Let’s start 2011 with a recap of my holidays, shall we?
Every year, I travel to my tiny hometown of 3606 people in Southwest Arkansas to spend Christmas in my childhood home. This year I spent 3 days having lots of cable and internet free family time around roaring fires. We baked, attended my church’s “candlight” service on Christmas Eve, and exchanged Snoop Dogg jokes while driving around looking at Christmas lights.
On Christmas morning we awoke to the sound of Ottie’s electronic bird noisemaker, which chirps constantly until unplugged. I found it soothing and nostalgic, my sister – on the other hand – described it as cruel and unusual punishment. In either case, I knew that Ottie was looking over us smiling. Eventually, we got out of our warm beds and bounded down the stairs to unwrap our gifts while wearing our traditional Christmas Eve gift of new pajamas. Once we finished unwrapping gifts, my sister asked for three gift bags. Why? So she could wrap our gifts from her – she’s always prepared.
Next was Christmas breakfast, to which my parents thought mimosas would be a nice addition. Being the heavy drinkers they are, mom asked my sister and I to Google mimosas on our phones. Ha! A Google search? My sister and I could mix a mimosa in our sleep.
By the time dinner came around we had spent the day vegging on the couch reading, texting friends, and watching movies. But there was an unopened bottle of Riesling in the fridge that we (ok, my sister and I) wanted to open. Then we realized we had no corkscrew in the house. Being the scrappy folk we are, my dad picked through my mom’s craft cabinet for screws and pliers and my sister grabbed a knife and an ice pick.
We quickly realized that the ice pick wouldn’t work and resorted to screws and pliers for the most effective method of cork removal. The first try revealed that a longer screw would be needed, and after tightening the screw into the cork using a knife…
…my dad used the pliers to pull the cork out. Success!!
Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I guess it’s only fitting since we started the Christmas season drinking. 🙂
meggieslife.com 
You used my idea! Drywall screws, FTW!! (Although I think it’s important to note that the idea to remove a cork with an actual screw wasn’t *my* idea so much as the idea of another former resident of your hometown. Is Emergency Wine Opening required to graduate from PHS?) 🙂
Ha! It must be a requirement, because before I even shared “your” idea with my family, my dad has already suggested it. The next day a cousin told us he’d removed a cork that way before too. 🙂
so you are on a roll with the last couple of blogs. I actually snorted at baby Jesus and Santa playing tennis.