Santa brought us a new power transformer on the pole across the street, but not until about 10 pm last night!

I usually cook the turkey at about 11 am, so we can eat around 3pm but not this year. The wife wants to go to her parents first. I say, why not put the turkey in the oven first, then go to their house (only 4 miles away) then we have a good reason to leave. No, she wants to go, now, so we go. And we get back very late (5pm) and then I have to start the turkey. The Turkey goes into the oven about 5:45, 3 hour cook time.

About 7pm the power goes out. At first I think we tripped a breaker or something, so we scrounge up some flashlights and start resetting all the breakers. No luck. So I go walking to see if the neighbors are out too. They are. So now the wife is on the phone to the electric co.

Well, much to my amazement, the electric co. actually answers the phone, and sends out a truck! On Christmas! I guess because I'm paying them $750/mo for electricity they don't want my house out too long, might hurt their bottom line!

So the first guy who comes out trys to reset the transformer, and that restores the 110 service, but not the 220. So he tries again, and again, and again.

45 minutes later he calls for two more trucks to replace both the transfomers on the pole. The two that are there are about 40 years old and covered with vines. He says it will take at least 1-1/2 hours. The wife isn't waiting, she wants me to find food.

So I go driving up and down rt. 27, and as you can guess, nothing is open...except Dennys!

So now I go back to the house, load up the wife and 4 kids and it's Christmas Dinner at Dennys at 9pm! Just us and some cops in there, and some drunk kids. Drunks at Dennys? Who knew?

$80 [that place has gotten way too expensive!] and 1 hour later we are on our way home and loe and behold, the lights are now on! Yeah! The trucks were gone so I couldn't even thank them or offer them a beer or 3.

A huge thanks to all the electric co. workers who showed up and replaced the transformers at night on Christmas!

Oh, I finished cooking the turkey at midnight, it was quite tender after 5 hours in the oven [bless those roasting bags]! Carved it up, put it all away in the fridge for today, washed the pots, pans, etc. and took out the trash.

Got to bed at 1am. Now I'm packing for my trip to Kuwait later today, I might get a bite of turkey before I go. And some stuffing.

I hope you all had a better day than I did!

Oh, and I got a new belt and a couple books.