Random Facts: HO HO HO HOliday Style

I thought I would do a Random Fact blog about Christmas.

Tis the Season

1.  One year when I was around 3 or 4, one of my crazy-ass Uncles, or maybe it was one of their crazy-ass friends, dressed up like Santa Claus and came to the house.  Me and my cousin were the only kids at that time and I remember thinking that we must have been Really Good that year for The Big Guy to stop in just for little ole' us in little ole' Havre, Montana. I also remember thinking how Santa was a little too skinny from what I could recall and that maybe he was even a little drunk? Didn't matter either way - it was the best!!

2.  Unfortunately it was a mere year later when I found the incriminating evidence that Santa was a fake.  It was the year I had gotten a kitchen set for Christmas.

Kinda like this one, except mine was red. 

And I LOVED this kitchen set and pretending I was cooking.  (Which is kinda ironic since I don't love to cook now.) Apparently,  those same crazy-ass Uncles had spent the better part of Christmas Eve putting the thing together and apparently they thought it would be funny to stick their Miller Lite cans in the little tiny refrigerator (which is super funny now that I think of it) and apparently they thought they should take pictures of the whole "kitchen set schennanigans." And my little self found them and put two and two together. And the Santa Claus dream was dead.

Especially when you put the beer in their Kitchen Play Sets!

3.  My mom bought me my first car. A 1989 Nissan Sentra.

Look Mom!! 

And I got in on Christmas and it had a big red bow on it.  Seriously, how spoiled was I?  Shit, what I wouldn't give to have there be a completely PAID FOR car in our driveway this year.....grrrr......

4.  The one time I seriously thought I was going to die was when me, my friends D & A were driving home for Christmas break from college. D's car was like a front wheel drive death machine and we had to go over a mountain pass in Montana in a blizzard. Okay, it wasn't just any old mountain pass it was at the CONTINENTAL DIVIDE where on one side is a mountain and the other side is a 5, 610 foot drop. 

This doesn't even do it justice. Meh.

So here we are, 19 years old, D is driving like 10 miles an hour (as you SHOULD do in a situation like this) and she is hysterically crying. I am in the passenger seat trying to not shit my pants and A is like, dead silent in the back. We all are CONVINCED we are going to slide right off the side of the cliff and die. They have sheriff deputies out on the road and big semis are jack knifed and plows are trying their best to get the roads quasi-decent and it's just a fucking nightmare but we are in the middle of nowhere and we have to keep going. We are all smoking cigarettes even tho it's -10 degrees outside and D has the kind of asthma that's totally deadly but she decides to smoke her first cigarette because her nerves are shot. And we are all going to die anyways so we don't even give a shit. A sheriff comes over to our car that is idling on the road, waiting for the snow plows and D asks him if he could just drive us across the pass because she doesn't think we will make it. He laughs and I wanted to claw his eyes out. We made it but BARELY, stupid jerk-face Sheriff dude.

5.  This is one of my most favorite Christmas traditions from my New Zealand side of the family.

Christmas Cracker Crowns

Crackers are really cool! What isn't so cool is that Christmas is in the summer....

Say Whaaaaa?

I know, RIGHT?

Me: So, growing up you didn't sing "Frosty the Snowman?"

Z: No.

Me: So there was no, "Dashing through the snow, on a one-horse open sleigh?"

Z: Nope.

Me: No "chestnuts on an open fire?"

Z: Yes! Yes! There were those!!

Me: Well thank F-ing Gawd.

Happy Holidays to You and Yours!!  

Adventures with Dentures

We returned last week from our inter-island vacation for Turkey Day. I love seeing all the other islands that make Hawaii. Each is so unique from the other.

And it's always nice to "get off the rock" even if it's to go to another "rock".

Especially when there's wine involved!

I LOVE WINE!!!!

There was also friends, food, surfing and volcanos. The usual Thanksgiving things.

Good times in volcanic steam vents with C, B, Z and me!

There was also much talk about dentures.

I don't recall how it got brought up - but once someone has a story about dentures it seems everyone has a story about dentures, am I right?

My G-ma - whose stories have made this blog more than once -  let me brush her dentures when I was little.  I know she claims she "doesn't remember" this. (DENIAL! Am I right?)  But I remember! It's one of my favorite moments with her. I don't know why they weren't cemented in her mouth -  sorta like G-ma's friend, Evelyn, remember? But maybe she had just gotten them or gotten an upgrade? (Dentures 5.0) But the top one's were not in her mouth and she let me brush them while she held them. I remember really wanting to hold them but those chompers were probably not cheap so I took the next best thing and brushed them for her. It was awesome.

Let me brush them!!

My friend, C, then told me about his Grandma, whom we affectionately call Hula Nanny. (The reason for this is a great, great picture of Hula Nanny which I will get my hands on and put up on this blog asap.)

So C told Hula Nanny that he wanted her dentures when the time comes that she passes away and Hula Nanny agreed.  This is awesome to me for 2 reasons: he wants his G-ma's fake teeth and that she is totally down to give them to him. That's some family love right there. 

Maybe if C collects enough he could make this necklace?

And then my girl, B, told us that when her Grandma, MaryMom, passed away her dying wish was to have B make sure her dentures were in at the funeral so she would look presentable. This is too great. As are all MaryMom's stories.  One of my favorite being that MaryMom used to stand on her porch and wave like the Queen of England as B and her family were driving away.

Man, I wish I could have met MaryMom.

Aren't Grandparents just the best?

Any Denture Adventure stories of your own? Care to share?