White Elephants

Thought I'd share some funny things from Christmas last year, courtesy of Andrew, my brother. He's a pretty good writer, as are some of my other siblings. I'll throw in a few pictures that he and I took. To explain, we had a white elephant exchange- in part because my oldest brother, Spencer, had the funny item of temporarily stealing several old, unused items with which the family was very familiar, or in some cases, unfamiliar- and wrapping them up as gifts.

The "gifts?" Well, they started with some items from Dad's "office." A little bust of Bach, a book on how to raise boys and solve the Rubik's cube. From there it went to a giant pair of over-sized shears and Dad's old broken .22 rifle. Even better we retrieved from the back porch the "bag balm" from our dairy cow days. It was still in the same "cubby" where it had sat for years. I couldn't believe it when I looked- and there it was! Apparently the grand prize was an old trout that Nathan, Kimball, or Dad had caught and put in the freezer so many years ago that I think that it was actually freeze-dried and weighed only a fraction of what it should have weighed.


Andrew's response to Kimball's e-mail below (another brother):

Family,
I'll be their both nights... I think singing from one door to another would be sufficient for all to feel a bit of the Spirit. I'm down with white elephants (something cheap or homemade) ...and no frozen rainbow trout.

Later,
Kimball Clark

Andrew's response:
It wasn't frozen Kimball, it was a patented and time-honored method of freeze-drying.

I looked it up on the internet:

"This aging and freezing process begins in the highland ponds of Farmington, Utah in North America and can only be duplicated with years of patience and experience as the free-range, fresh water trout is hooked, gutted –or not– and wrecklessly glazed with a fine layer of Reynolds aluminum or plastic by native fisherman ensuring proper 'airination'.
The delicacy then begins the age-old 'freezage' (freez-ahhhge) process which can take well up to 20 years. During this time-honored process, the trout, bovine tounge or occasional raccoon produces a flavor that cannot be replicated in any other way.
Moved randomly from shelf several times each decade, the delicacies are enveloped, airinated and imbued by quarts of turkey juices with bits of celery, bottles of bacon greases and bags of yeast infusing and enhancing the original meat flavors with our own unique recipe that can only be replicated by sucking on an old ice tray or licking the frozen juices that accumulate over the years in the bottom of your freezer.
The prized meat delicacies are then gifted and received with jubilant squeals of delight from the benefactor and the envious eyes of covetousness of all others as gifts are exchanged with loved ones gathered during frigid holiday months."