Everyone loves Christmas. It is such a joyous time of year when families get together and celebrate. While this can add stress it can also lead to memories that you will hold onto for the rest of your life. Christmas 2020 was an interesting one, to say the least. For those who have seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, it was kind of like that! Stay tuned.
So for anyone that has not seen that Christmas classic I will give you a brief overview. The main character is having a large party for his extended family. However, anything that can go wrong does go wrong in the most comedic fashion. The tree burns down, a squirrel gets into the house and the dog destroys the house trying to get it, the food is burnt, and his cousin kidnaps his boss. These are just some of the events throughout this classic comedy movie. Now to be honest our Christmas wasn't nearly that chaotic, mostly because we don't have a team of writers deciding our next move, but it was one of the most eventful Christmas I can remember.
2020 was a rough year for the whole world and we were excited to find some normalcy with our recently started Christmas party tradition for our family. We invite my parents, my sister's family, and Lindsay's parents to our house to celebrate together. I think because of the stress of the year we put a little more pressure on ourselves to make it as normal as possible and really wanted everyone to have a great time. It hadn't really snowed that much that year so we weren't going to have a white Christmas for the event but I was still planning on having a fire. Eventually, everyone arrived, we ate great food and exchanged gifts. We have a fun tradition that every year a different family has to get ornaments for the others which leads to some really unique ornaments on the tree. It is fun to look all year for that perfect ornament when it is your turn. This time it was my parent's year and they got us all Leg Lamp ornaments from A Christmas Story. Another Christmas classic where hijinks happen. I should have suspected this would not be a normal night.
So up to this point, I hear you saying, that sounds like a splendid night. Where is the chaos? I say to you that the night truly started when it was ending. My sister and her family were the first to leave. They piled their kids into their SUV and we said our goodbyes. Lindsay and I put our son down for the night and joined our parents in the living room. From the window, I could see my sister's car still in the driveway and didn't think much of it, until my brother-in-law walked in the door. Apparently, my sister was stuck and we needed to push her out. It had snow just enough since the start of the party to dampen the grass enough so it could no longer support the weight of an SUV that had just been back onto it. No worries we thought, all of us present have pushed our fair share of cars out and knew what to do. She would be on the road in no time. I was so arrogant and so wrong. The vehicle had 4 wheel drive so we thought giving it an extra little push as she rocked it would get it out. All we did was dig it deeper into the ground. We got mats and 2x4's and put them under the tires. The SUV just shot them back at us like a football jugs machine, each time just driving the massive vehicle deeper. No worries I thought, I will go borrow tow cables from a neighbor and pull her out with my 1986 Ford 250 with a 460 engine in it. I walked down my 600ft gravel driveway with my phone lighting the way until I got to my neighbor's house. Thankfully he was home and happily let me borrow his cables. Then he offered his van to pull her out but I told him my truck will be able to do it. This was going to be a cakewalk. Again my confidence was unfounded tonight. I hooked her up, hooked my truck up, and was actually excited I was going to finally use the truck like this. I slowly applied power and felt the cables tighten up. A little more and I should feel her start rolling. I did not feel that. What I did feel is my back end start kicking sideways as I started to throw gravel and dig a hole in my driveway. I tried a few more times but each time I tried my back end inched closer and closer into the death trap that was my grass. It was at that moment that I realized my $1,000 truck that wasn't 4 wheel drive wasn't going to cut it. In defeat, I unhooked myself and helped hooked up my father-in-law's SUV with 4 wheel drive. After a couple of hours in the cold trying to get her free, we finally did and she was on her way. My yard was pretty wrecked but hey that is a problem for springtime!
After that fiasco, we felt there was no better time to relax by the fire before my parents had to leave. We have only had a few fires at the time and we were excited to show off our wood-burning fireplace. They have become so rare but such a staple of Christmas and this was setting up to be a Hallmark movie moment. Christmas, helping someone in need, cuddling up next to a wood-burning fireplace with loved ones. Our night was going to go slightly different than that though. I had opened up the first stage of the chimney flue and pulled the chain to open up the second one near the top. I already had the wood all set up and lit the kindling to get it going. Since we haven't used the fireplace much up till this moment, we still only had a mesh gate instead of doors. The mesh gate was from the previous owners and the doors are very expensive so we made it work even though it wasn't really closed. Initially, everything looked normal. A little smoke started to come back into the room and we just assumed it was so windy outside that we might be getting a little backdraft. As the fire picked up though so did the smoke. Far more than we have ever seen before. At this point, we realized the top part of the flue must not have opened. Everyone left the room but my dad and I as we tried to determine what the problem was. The safe assumption was that I had accidentally closed the flue instead of opened it from earlier so I released the chain. We waited for a little to see if there was going to be a change but the smoke was getting worse so that wasn't it. The whole living room was hazy at this point and the rest of the family started opening up doors and windows to try to clear the smoke. I went back in to try to open the flue again but again nothing and the fire was fully ablaze now. With the smoke now pouring out of the fireplace we had to put it out. We had been hesitant to do that because that produces a lot of smoke with nowhere to go. The hope was we would be able to get the flue open and not have to resort to that. While laying close to the ground my dad gave me a couple of buckets of water and carefully reached into the fire to put it out. It was slower than I wanted it to be because I had to let the steam and smoke clear before I could go back in. Mercifully the fire was finally out and with all the doors and windows opened to the frigid winter air, and every fan on, the smoke started to clear as well.
The night was not as relaxing and joyful as we had hoped. It had actually been kind of chaotic and stressful. Once everything was safe and under control, my parents said their goodbyes and headed home. Without doors to seal off the fireplace the dust and ash gently blew into the room... which meant the flue was finally opened... Remember that small amount of snow I mentioned earlier that caused my sister to get stuck? Well apparently the flue had been frozen shut and it had finally thawed after all that hot air was trapped against it. Simply amazing timing. With nothing else to do but just laugh at the insanity, I sat down with Lindsay with a glass of Johnny Walker Green. My brother-in-law had given me a bottle of it for my birthday a few months earlier and it was perfect for this moment. Since my mouth and nostrils were inundated with smoke I felt like a scotch was probably my best choice. Green isn't as smokey as others though which is nice because it was almost easing my palate back to normality like how a diver just doesn't come straight to the surface. I couldn't go for something sweet and I couldn't stay in the smoke forever so I worked my way back with the mild smoke of Johnnie Walker Green. It really hit the spot after that eventful evening and helped me reflect on how funny those events were going to be in the future.
Johnnie Walker Green is 80 proof and is a great mild scotch. A great intro for those looking to get into scotch. These are the listed notes but I don't always get all of these. I am curious to hear what you got.
Nose: The clean aromas of cut grass and fresh fruit mingle with pepper, rich vanilla, and sandalwood.
Palate: Discover a range of deep wood notes, lush with oak and cedar. It combines these richer flavors masterfully with light garden fruits and tropical, fragrant, floral notes.
Finish: A fantastic expression of our signature smoky finish, with notes of peat and the crisp flavor of sea salt
I would recommend a glass of this neat, especially if you have a mouth full of smoke already. Maybe a couple drops of water to help rehydrate the firefighter in you but as always drink it the way you will enjoy it most. Overall, I would definitely try Johnnie Walker Green if you are ever given the opportunity.
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