Christmas Eve Games at Mammy's

For all of you whom HAVE NOT heard my "Mammy stories," this will be the first of an epic story with chapters to be added about every holiday season... For those of you who HAVE heard some of the stories or if you are one of the true "Mammy Followers" who ask me for regular updates - this blog post's for you.

Christmas Eve 2007:
Let me preface this by saying "Mammy" is my father's mother and I was "fortunate" enough to miss the 2006 T-giving and Christmas Eve adventures by being on the Georgia coast for 5 months for job training. So it had been two full years since I had truly had a "Mammy Adventure," which wasn't long enough to my best friend Kris, who accompanied me for T-giving 2005 and I again drug along for Christmas Eve 2007...

Where to begin? Well, things were weird as usual and started to get really boring as we realized everyone brought spinach dip and crackers/chips to the "finger foods only" event. (We don't let Mammy cook anymore - this idea will be continued in a later blog to catch you up on Mammy stories...) This brings me to part one of this story:

Part 1: Show me the garage!
So I decide to go check out the garage and see if there are any new great stories to be had. And of course, there were. First we noticed the huge rat trap in a box of potatoes, set with a shelled pecan... I don't know, but we about peed our pants at the sight of it!

Then Kris, one of my cousins, and I decided to play a quick game called, "Find the oldest pull date." Within two minutes, my cousin had won with a bottle of Hickory BBQ sauce with "New flavor: Mesquite" pull dated 1987. Winner! I have attached a picture of MY find - there were four so I took one home as proof for all of you who have scoffed at my Mammy stories over the years! Marshmallow Creme, two different shades of color, and pull dated May 17, 1992. Enjoy. These were just in the front cabinets - we didn't even get to the back...

Then I snuck Kris out to the back garage to show her the home canning projects Mammy made that are now home science projects... More rat traps baited with shelled pecans, except these pecans were twisty-tied to the trap and the trap itself was tied to the nearest stationary item with rope...peed my pants again - and then scared Kris with the science projects in the back. (sorry, in the rush, we forgot the camera).

Shortly after we snuck back into the house, Mammy made the announcement that if we don't like our gifts we can exchange with each other this year. Why don't we just exchange them at the store you ask? Because they were all purchased in 1960-1970 and stored in the famous attic... So this brings me to part two of the story:

Part 2: My gift from Mammy
I got a ridiculous robe with 'almost' matching slippers, a pair of flip-flops Mammy only wore "a time or two" and decided she didn't like them, a small sewing kit, 2 aprons from the 60's with brown and orange flowers, 2 bags of rosemary spices that looked similar to pot, and a traveling clothes line with little clips that could easily be roach clips for my rosemary... so you can see how the rest of the evening went with me, Kris, my family and the jokes that ensued about my pot and roach clips from Mammy - and how much this little gift really explained... If only I had had some Zig Zags...