How to ruin a Christmas dinner---without dogs or cats~~~

You know folks, this mean kitty loves Christmas, I love going to church, the singing, the prayers, the idea of what Christmas is all about.

But I also love seeing the happy faces on the kiddie relatives when they get their gifts, of course I'm simple unless they are under the age of 7 then they get money, under 7 I ask a parent what the muchinkin would like and then let them know what I've bought so there's no duplication.

I also love exchanging stories about the different events in each other's lives. But most of all I love sitting down to a wonderful dinner, inhaleing the wonderful food scents, saying "Grace", Blessing the cooks and enjoying the wonderful flavors.

Unless we happen to go to one particular relatives house, then it can be a disaster. This Relative whose name will be Typhoid Mary or T.M. for short, said that Xmas dinner will be at her house this year.

Well I just knew that at best the food would get to the table barely warm at worst, below room tempture, but at least it would have some flavor-----but this year ****sigh**** THIS YEAR it was a disaster.

I mean if the place was invaded by 7 hungry blood hounds like in the movie "Christmas Story" I could understand, If the kitchen had caught on fire, I could understand, If the stove had blown up I could understand, if the "Johnstown Flood" had revisted our community I COULD UNDERSTAND!!

BUT FROZEN SUPERMARKET LASANA?????? And cheese only Lasana at that---no meat, no guts to it. It was defrosted, it was cooked, but to say that it was tepid was being charitible at best, a solid block of cheese at worst----garlic bread with melted cheese that was not even room tempture and the cheese was a solid slab, lettuce that was a bit wilted ( and it wasn't even warm spinach salad which is suppose to be wilted) bottle thousand island dressing, water to drink, no soft drinks, no sparkling cider, and for dessert plain vanilla ice cream without any chocolate syrup or hot fudge-----the only thing that was palitable was the coffee it was hot and there was sugar but no cream or milk.

No roasted veggies, no olives for the kids to stick on their fingers, no pickles or small picked onions, no hot gravy, no hot dish to speak of, no apple, peach or berry pie, heated from the microwave, just wilted salad and hard bread.

Well we looked at each other and not at T.M. and we all put our best faces on, ate a little to be polite, had the coffee to warm our innards, and then as soon as we all could thanked T.M. for dinner and then regrouped at my brother's house and had left overs of Heated Ham, with applesauce, steamed carrots, baked yams (o.K. they were canned yams but they tasted good), raided my brother's stash of soft drinks and put the ice maker into overtime, it took an hour to bake the Ms. Smiths pies but we had dessert.

And we looked at each other and said "what was T.M. thinking??"

This Mean Kitty has never, ever served a dinner that bad, I mean I've burned the pot roast once but it was saveable, I have burnt potatoes I mean who hasn't but tepid Frozen Supermarket cheese Lasana for Christmas dinner has got to be the worst, even if you had to be tight with money at least the Lasana could have been HOT!!

It does explain why T.M.'s husband and kids are so skinny and why they eat like ravenous wolves when they are at other relatives houses for dinner.

There is an old saying "Beauty cannot be eaten with a spoon" which means even if you are a beautiful woman you better be able to cook, because if you can't then the man in your life will starve, which in some countries there are men who look for women who not only are good looking but can cook, but if they are not too good looking if they can cook like a goddess who cares!!

But in T.M.'s case she is not beautiful and she can't cook or at least bring the food to the table hot or even plan a dinner.

This Mean Kitty is praying that next Christmas the dinner is at another relatives' house I know the rest of them can cook up a storm.

This mean kitty signing off for the night suffering nightmares from frozen lasana---oh where is the seltzer.