Tells us about the Christmas you want to forget!

[Scott]

For any reason...

[rootbeer]

Uh - I can't remember.   

[Lynx]

I have none.

[Scott]

1.) When I was 14 or 15; my dad's mother was in the hospital dying and my favorite aunt died. While at her funeral my uncle had a seizure and had to be rushed to the E.R.

2.) Dec 1995 - a month after my dad died. That year, my mom gave me the presents she had purchsed for my dad. She asked me to have them for him.  Yeah it tears me up to this day.

3.) Dec 1996 - the first one without my dad AND my Grandfather

4.) When my oldest son was about a year old, I lost my job 2 weeks before Christmas. We had to put all our money into making sure the mortgage and other bills were paid. My wife was working a minimum wage job. We had just enough the day before Christmas for me to buy my son a $5.00 toy to open on Christmas Morning.

5.) One Christmas we flew home from visiting family - our car was parked at my wife's job and the battery wouldn't start. We couldn't get a towing service to come because it was 30 below and there was up to an 8 hour wait. We had to call my wife's uncle to come over and give us a jump start.  We nearly froze to death that night waiting on a jump.

6.) One Christmas we got stranded 120 miles from home on Chrsitmas Eve. My Oldest son had to spend Christmas Eve and part of Christmas day alone. We had to get someone to repair our truck door - broken hinge. We had to get it welded and then the heater went out of the truck. It was -30 that day, we had to find a truck stop and buy a plug in heater to keep us moderatly worm until  we could get home.

7.) Due to a delay with UPS - Christmas presents for my kids were a few days beyond Christmas one year.  Luckily we had something for them on Chrsitmas day, but they were sorely disappointed.

8.) 1998 was hard, we lost my grandmother and her sister that year. I lived with my grandparents quite a bit when I was a teenager and I was really close to my aunt, she was like my 2nd grandmother (I didn't count my dads mom as a grandmother, she was an odd, strange and scary person).

9.) The past two Christmas' weren't too easy, each year I lost a close friend a week before Christmas

10.) The first Christmas my wife and I were married, I was laid off from a temp job the day before Christmas and the day we got home from a Christmas celebration at her famillies house; the gas ran out of our Propane tank and the gas company refused to fill it up. It seems that the people who lived there before we did didn't pay the bill and they said they were afraid we were the same people and using a phoney name.  I went to their office and said "do I look like them?".  They said "no, but people can change"    It was -40 that day. (Upper Iowa)  We could not convince them that we were different people.  We used the last of our cash to find a cheap $30.00 motel room, Hardees for Supper and a donut for breakfast. We finally got it cleared up and the heat back on.   

(The Electric company told me the same thing, the people who used to live there owed money and they weren't sure that we were not the same people using a different name.  The town had 562 people - and we were new in town. I went into their office and asked if I looked like the same guy, they said "No, but you have the same first name, so you could be him. They even sent a guy out to shut off our electricity... I told him to leave and he ran off crying - I scared him - he was a big dude too.  Thank God we left that insane town of backwood inbreds)

[Scott]

There is a common theme about -30. 

December in Minnesota, parts of Wisconsin and Iowa are the start of the Arctic cold fronts. Usually around the 15th of December and moving well into January the weather gets colder.  (Today for example it is 5 above with a minus something wind chiil)  We start seeing temps of below zero on a regular basis until the end of January. Sometimes we get 2 to 3 weeks solid of below zero weather.

One Christmas I was a manager of a trailer park and it was -25 with -40 and -50 wind Chills. I had to deal with multiple trailers with frozen pipes and having to pass out new water main heat sticks all day.  My pipes even froze but we were able to borrow a heater to thaw them out.  It was sooo cold that we had to start our care every 4 hours for several days. Start it up, idle for 15 to 20 minutes. I still remember sitting in the car Christmas Eve night listening to the Santa Claus watch on WCCO AM-830 at 3am.

[Chseeads]

There was one Christmas a long while back, I don't remember if I was still maybe a teenager then or what...I can't remember just exactly when it was....  But I had an aunt, I believe is who it was, that was in the hospital (someone was in the hospital anyways, because going to see them was part of the memories, and I believe it was my aunt)....

Anyways, I was having a bad nervous anxiety issue.  I couldn't stand to put anything in my mouth...I felt like I couldn't swallow anything.  I couldn't hardly eat anything.  It was really weird, and no fun. 

So there ya go.