Christmas Dinner with Murphy's Law

I hope and pray everyone had a fabulous Christmas this year.  I had an interesting Christmas to say the least, and still I am blessed by Him whose birth we celebrate.

I'm gonna tell the story of my crazy Christmas dinner, starting with Christmas eve. 

It all started Friday (Christmas eve) at approximately 6pm when I opened the oven to put the apple pies in to bake.  EEK...there was not a drop of heat in my oven, it wasn't even warm, so I yelled loud enough for Pete, my husband, to hear:  "problem, we've got a big problem!".  Pete came down and played with the oven for a bit, then tested the element by checking the cleaning cycle.  The heating element was working, but this Fault code kept appearing.  Murphy's law has arrived!

As Pete is working on the oven, I'm thinking about the 14 pound turkey I've got in the fridge to cook tommorrow.  How am I going to cook that??  Pete kept telling me to take deep breaths, it will all work out. (my thought to that was:  deep breaths aren't going to make my oven work)

As I'm thinking all these GREAT thoughts about Christmas dinner, I've still got 2 apple pies to bake.  Pete decided if we can maintain a 200 degree temperature by turning the cleaning cycle on and off, we would be ok.  How many of you ladies reading this think that is a crazy idea??

We did exactly that, with Pete monitoring the temperature while the pies are in the oven.  My pies normally take about 1 hour to cook, well...I was 'slow cooking' these 2 apple pies for sure.  I finally gave up at midnight (the pies weren't getting brown), knowing it was going to be an interesting Christmas dinner the next day.  Murphy is still visiting.

Moving on to Christmas day:

I wake up at 6am, thinking of all the things needing to be done, and how it was going to get done with an oven that is not cooperating.  So I clean the bird, make the stuffing, place it in the roaster, all the while trying to time everything out with an adjustment for 'slow cooking' beings we were only able to maintain about a 200 degree temperature by turning the clean cycle on and off.  Pete is now awake (it is about 8am) and I tell him, 'we have got to get this bird in the oven, to make sure it is done by 2pm (dinner time)'  Pete was my 'heat monitor' for the oven, and he was turning it on and off throughout the day to maintain the 200 degree temperature.

So now I'm thinking to myself, just maybe it will all work out ok.  And then I hear beeping in the kitchen-it was the oven yet again, and Pete tells me a different fault code is now showing, and he can't even turn the oven on.  This was about 12:20pm (dinner is scheduled for 2pm) and I was thinking 'NOW WHAT'!
Murphy - GO AWAY!

My brain was working overtime to figure out how to finish cooking this big bird.  I've got it:  the grill!!  So I had Pete fire up the grill to preheat it.  He took the turkey out and put it on the grill, then comes back in the house and tells me we are out of gas for the grill.  (Murphy really needs to end his visit with this house now)Oh no....now what?  Pete gets his coat on, and says I'm going to find somewhere to get gas for the grill.  I'm thinking, it's Christmas day, where in the world is he going to gas for the grill today?!

Thank God for Home Depot's automated machines!  Put the empty canister in, swipe your card, full canister appears.  Yeah, we're in business again!

So, Pete comes back with gas for the grill, connects everything up, gets the grill started and preheated, takes the turkey out and we are going to get it all done.  I'm inside doing mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies, etc etc etc., when I went to open a cabinet door and not paying attention to which door I was opening, smacked myself in the head pretty hard with the cabinet door.  Murphy is still here.

Pete comes back in the house to me in tears because I hit my head.  I've even got a bit of knot on my head.  I said "Murphy really needs to go away", and of course, Pete laughed.

I got it all done, and everything was tasty I was told.  The slow cooked apple pies weren't all that great, but Pete says they are fine.  He would as apple is his favorite pie.

All in all, it was a very interesting day for sure.  Usually before this type of dinner I am a bit nervous and have butterflies in my belly, this Christmas I wasn't nervous at all about the big dinner.  Murphy sure fixed that.

Hope you all enjoyed reading about my Christmas dinner with Murphy's law, it was interesting!

Be Blessed!

Tricia