The stories behind our 2013 Christmas Card, Part 3

The final installment of our 2013 Christmas card explanation starts with the overwhelming anxiety that engulfs me every holiday season. Due to the fact that New Orleans is a culture significantly based on food, when the holidays roll around most people are ready for delicious food. I CAN'T provide that! I was raised in a family of women with a sub par track record for cooking success. To give a better idea of what I mean that my mother wasn't the best cook: I was born on the 12th of the month, brought home on the 13th, and was forced to relocate after an unfortunate toxic fire on the 15th. Apparently my mother didn't know that plastic baby bottles should not be warmed in the microwave for an extended amount of time. There was also an electrical fire, another baby bottle incident on the stove, and when she got a new stacked  "double" oven she didn't realize there was a protective plastic wrap on the top of the bottom oven and a simple preheating turned into a National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation type of disaster. 

I have personally only set the kitchen on fire 4 or 5 times; however, my husband continues to insist that HE should cook the Holiday meals to keep the premium on our home owner's insurance to a minimum. Nonetheless, we learned on Thanksgiving day 2013 that not all accidents occur just when I'm cooking, they also occur when I'm in the kitchen! My cooking issues caused my anxiety to be at an all time high so we got a babysitter and went out for mommy and daddy drinks on Thanksgiving Eve. We rolled home in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning and I had enough liquid courage to enter the kitchen to attempt to "enhance" our holiday meal. I added some spices and went to bed. 

Throughout the night, I had a horrible pain in my elbow but continuously rolled over and went back to bed. I woke up to discover this Thanksgiving surprise:

I leaned over the stove to try the potatoes and burned my arm on the stove. It didn't hurt at the time but the next morning was an entirely different story. 

So, our 2013 Christmas card consisted of exactly what our year had brought us. 

"The Hermanns got run over by a reindeer, side swiped by a sleigh, and roasted over an open fire!"

We hope your Holiday season brings you happiness and fun and pray ours leaves us free from injuries and ER visits!