My two sisters and I were too old for all the Santa Claus hype, so we slept in on Christmas morning. But when we woke up at 9:00, something wasn’t right. We could not smell that wonderful roasting turkey smell. All three of us went running downstairs to find mom.
“What’s up with no turkey smells?” we asked our mother, who was standing there in her nightgown and bathrobe, wondering the very same thing. She bent over to open the oven door, and screamed, “Oh, no. The oven must be broken! I turned it on at 6:30, but it has not been cooking our 23-pound turkey all this time.”
“I know what I’ll do, I’ll carry it over to Mrs. Johnson’s, and ask her to roast it in her oven. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.”
So with her robe flying behind her, she literally ran across the street to Mrs. Johnson’s house with our main course bird in the navy blue, white-spotted roasting pan carefully cradled in her arms. Mrs. Johnson was going to her nephew Eddie’s house for Christmas dinner, so her oven was available. Phew!
Mom came running back to our house, breathing a sigh of relief. Our turkey would get cooked after all, so she did not have to call my Grandmother and Auntie Lil, and tell them not to come. In the mean time, we all showered and dressed in our best red, white and green Christmas attire.
We helped my mom set the big dining room table with our special holiday china. We put out the Christmas tree salt & pepper shakers, the white gravy boat with the matching ladle, and the green glass cranberry sauce bowl.
Mom had made all the pies the day before, and cooked the green bean casserole and our favorite Potatoes Kathleen the night before. Tbey just had to be heated before being served, and that could be done in Mrs. Johnson’s oven, too.
At 1:00 pm on the dot, my grandma and aunt arrived. My mother let them in, just as she was going over to Mrs. Johnson’s to get our turkey, and put the vegetables in the oven. She planned to heat up the pies after dinner, just before she would serve the dessert.
To her horror, upon arriving in Mrs. Johnson’s kitchen, she realized she never turned on Mrs. J’s oven, and Mrs. J. didn’t either before she left for her nephew’s house. Waiting for the veggies to heat up enough to stay warm running them back across the street, she frantically went over in her mind what she had in our fridge that she could possibly serve as a main course.
This is what we ate for that very special Christmas dinner: cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, Potatoes Kathleen with no turkey gravy, and bologna sandwiches!
INSTANT NOODLES 