Thursday, January 10, 2008

Disastrous Christmas

When you think of Christmas morning visions of twinkling Christmas lights, freshly wrapped presents under the tree, and the pitter patter of smiling little children tromping into the room.  Instead ours began with the clatter of a sleep-deprived mother bouncing down the stairs at 6am.  In too much pain to breath I lay on the bottom step in silence, only it wasn't the silence of the regular Christmas night.  My husband arose with shouts of fear and visions of twisted and unconscious wife laying crumpled at the bottom of the stairs.  Battered and bruised he helped me back up the stairs to see if we could get another wink or two in, but the children were awoken by the noise and the day began.

The presents were opened with eagerness and the kitten delighted in all the tossed aside ribbons and bows while the children played with each new gift.  The Christmas frittata I had planned for breakfast decided to wait and instead we had a quick breakfast so we could get back to our second round of unwrapping.  Somewhere in the midst of this I began dinner preparations.  Do you know how hard it is to find a turkey in the Netherlands?  Well, I had to go to a German store to find it and was grateful that I had, though it was rather small in comparison to the ones we find in America.  Still, we had no extra family members to feed but ourselves, so size really didn't matter.  I had a special stuffing I had made from the English Christmas magazine given by Sinterklaas and though I don't normally stuff the turkey, this year would be an exception.  When pulling out the package of innards a thought of inspiration came to mind.  I knew we were not going to use them for gravy as I had something else planned, but we now had a cat who loved fresh meat.  We'd read up on what was acceptable to give to your cat so knew a little liver couldn't hurt.  I took a small portion of the already small liver and put it in her bowl, much to her excitement.  The kitten ceased to leave the bowl for the length of time it took me to stuff and insert the turkey into the oven.

The kids were now playing with the next round of toys and I began my own next round of preparations for Christmas dinner.  I was so proud of myself for having made ahead almost everything that could be.  Still, things needed to be thawed, reheated, or topped off.  In the midst of preparations I heard the cat give a sudden cry of help which isn't uncommon when the poor thing has three little girls who love to smother it with love at even the most inopportune of times (imagine loves in a litter box - not the Aerosmith version either).  I quickly stuck my head out of the kitchen to scold whichever child was once again torturing the unfortunate cat, only to see three pairs of innocent eyes peering up at me amidst the piles of toys and wrapping paper.  The cats crying plea soon turned into a yowl of garbled torture and I began to assume the worst.  Did one of the children have the cat trapped in a box, were they sitting on the poor thing without so much as a single look of guilt on their face, or did it find a way to strangle itself with the Christmas ribbons and bows?  Gargling yowls and pitiful cries soon intermingled with my own stern motherly voice demanding to know, "WHAT have you done with the cat!?"  It didn't take long before my ears began to detect the location of the resounding feline moans and deduce that it was nowhere near the three sets of bewildered faces peering up at me.  Instead I found it shivering in the corner behind the curtains huddled over a pile of freshly digested turkey liver.  Yup, my bad.  Sorry girls.  Still, you'd think the cat would have learned.  She still begged endlessly for a scrap of that turkey when it came out of the oven.  I suppose it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that it had feasted on the discarded carcass of the Thanksgiving turkey in France unbeknownst to us could it?  I am sure it will never beg for liver again though . . . right?

4 comments:

bookcross said...

No turkey, no goose, no ham... i know, we are a bit Christmas deprived. Sorry about that.
Hopefully Antje will understand what her maximum intake is now - and that liver is not food for any living creature. Though that may just be a personal opinion ;)
love, daphne

Anonymous said...

Oh she'll still beg. Manny begs for things he has no idea what they taste like. Sounds like Antje got a little excited and ate too fast.

Anonymous said...

The same thing happens with my cat whenever she eats seafood. She wolfs it down so fast, it invariably comes back up again!

S said...

hey! glad to be able to comment!

and goodness, what a christmas day! glad you survived it. ;